Guide: How to Delete Hidden Recovery Partition on Vista

I'm making this thread so i can use it as reference later if someone asks how it's done.

This only applies to Windows Vista.

*Make sure you have backed up your OEM keycode before deleting the hidden partition.*

The Lenovo Hidden Recovery Partition is a protected partition so you will not be able to delete it through Disk Management as you would with any other normal partition. You will need to use Diskpart. You can still use these steps to delete the hidden recovery partition if you have already done a clean install, but you'll need a 3rd party software to combine it with the primary partition. It is best if you delete the Hidden Recovery Partition first, then go through with a clean install using one of the many guides available on this board.

Step 1.
Burn Recovery Media. Type "Recovery Media" (without quotation marks) into search in the Start Menu. Open the application, and follow the instructions.

Step 2.
Open the Diskpart application by either typing in "Diskpart" (without the quotation marks) into the search, or type "Diskpart.exe" into Run by pressing the Windows key + R.

Step 3.
Now with Diskpart open, you must enter the following command lines:

I. Type "list disk" without the quotation marks and press enter.

II. Type in "select disk 0" and press enter.

III. Then type in "list partition" and press enter.

IV. Then type in "select partition x" x=the recovery partition you wish to delete (i believe it's 1, i dont recall) replace x with the recovery partition number and press enter.

V. Then finally type in "delete partition override" and press enter.

That should do the trick. Best of luck!

 

i'm sure this will be convenient for many folks

good work.

 

Worked beautifully on my X61t running Vista Business x64!

Thanks!

 

Thanks for the positive comments guys.

Hey no problem. I'm glad it worked out for you.

 

Just some suggestions for your guide. Mostly just typos... You have Steps 1,2, and 4. You might want to change that "4" to a "3". Also roman numeral VI change to IV. Yeah that's nit picky stuff but it might confuse somebody.

Otherwise it looks great thanks for putting this together.

 

Done! Thanks for the feedback.

 

Good idea!

Just to add an extra warning to this, even if you do use 3rd party software to re-combine the extra space from the hidden partition with the primary partition:
a) it takes something iro 6hours, and
b) you will probably mess up some fundamental parts of Vista (such as System Restore).

Don't bother, just reinstall Vista, it'll be quicker and your system will be more stable as a result.

 

Thanks!

When using this with Stallen's guide...it should work perfectly! I used playmakers and forgot to reformat the HD while clean installing vista..so therefore, I was still stuck with the hidden partition...even though it was empty...so make sure you delete it first before doing a clean install and make sure you delete the main partition and then reformat! Thanks again

 

Eyecon I did the same thing you did.. I'm wondering if you ever got around to going back and using some sort of partition editor to get your 7GB back. If so let me know because I need some help with this.. Thanks.

 

Sorry, I haven't. I don't like having my HD in partitions, so I never had a reason to revert back

 

so I did that on my XP Pro, and it deleted the information in the partition but the partition itself remained Disk Management under Computer Management in Administrative tools says 5.5GB Unallocated.

when I press the ThinkVantage button at the start up, it says "error loading OS" or something like that.

what should I do to join that unallocated partition to my HDD ?

 

put your windows CD in and repair, should fix itself.

 

i don't have xp cd that came with the laptop, only the recovery cds ..

BTW, I was able to format the unallocated partition and now I have 2 useful partitions .. lol

but I want one partition only. The research so far showed that I may need a program called Partition Magic, cause the partitions are "basic" so that was not good as far as I understood. I'll keep researching about this thing

 

I tried to use this on my TZ190N, now I can't seem to find the extra space I have recovered from deleting this recovery partition.

What do I do?

thanks

 

Why do this?

 

because I hate having something taking up extra space if I don't need it

 

Right. But maby the stuff is important to how the T61p runs.

 

it has nothing to do with how the t61p runs...all it stores is the backup restore copy of vista..and all the drivers and programs, and bloatware that comes with lenovo...all of which are independently downloadable through lenovo...so there is no need for it

if you have an anytime update vista dvd like I do..that essentially is my backup..I don't mind installing the drivers indepdently..just follow stallen's guide...and I only install like 25% of the programs that come with lenovo anyways...less bloatware

 

Okay, I tried to start diskpart.exe, it asked if I wanted to run as admin, I said yes, then a command prompt briefly flashed up and instantly went away. Whats up?

 

I must warn you to follow stallen's guide..otherwise you could lose your license data backed up on the partition...just read the 1st post..it contains all pertinent info

 

I tried these steps to delete the hidden partition but it keeps giving me an error stating "Please make sure the selected partition is valid to delete". What am I missing?

 

Call me stupid if you want because I'm not THAT computer savy.... but what does the deleting of this partition do or help?

 

basically it is wasting your HD space by having an extra partition...so if you are in need of more HD space..this is the only way it will really help

this is also a help if you don't mind doing "clean Installs" from now on because the factory saved copy of the OS will be deleted as well

 

Tried Diskpart, but the partition is still there. Also, the T61 does not have the option in the BIOS(Security->IBM PreDesktop Area) to disable it.

 

Let me rephrase that....

Diskpart.exe cleared the partition, but I still don't have access to the extra space. I'm trying to do a clean install. I'm assuming I go ahead and do that and the space will be available after the clean install?

Thanks,
640m

 

The Diskpart removes the partition and turns it into unallocated space. To be able to reallocate it you need to do a clean install after you do the diskpart partition delete. There are instructions somewhere in step #4 of Stallen's Clean Install guide.

PS. There are supposedly 3rd party programs that can be used to reallocate this unallocated space, but if you're doing a clean install anyways then there's no reason to use any of these programs.

 

Yeah, that's what I thought, so I began the clean install process last night using Stallen's guide after using Diskpart. However, when I get to step 3.12 of the guide where I delete and reformat the drive, I only see one area now of 93GB. My drive is 100GB. I'm assuming I'll have to reallocate the extra space when I'm done with the clean install. Also, I should point out that the Anytime DVD I was using is corrupt. In step 3.13 the process stopped - no matter how many times I tried. So, long story short is I'll get some DVDs and burn the files (downloaded already) to make my own disk and see what happens. Other than that, an awesome straightforward guide.

Thanks to the OP!!!

 

It worked properly. Unfortunately it's showing 93 GB because of an industry standard problem, disk overhead. Here's a link that discusses it, Disk Overhead. Basically you have a 100,027,854,848 byte capacity HD, but when it comes down to it you have 93.1 x 2^30 bytes or 93.1 GB of space. Yes it sucks, but it's how it is. Hopefully your next attempt goes well.

 

Since Dell didn't know, I just want to add that this process appears to have worked to delete the hidden Dell MediaDirect partition from an XPS machine running Vista, in the hopes that this will help someone find these steps when they need them. But be aware that MediaDirect contains the DVD codec, so if you delete it, apparently you need to find another DVD player software.

Delete Dell MediaDirect partition
Remove Dell MediaDirect partition
Delete Dell MediaDirect
Remove Dell MediaDirect
Delete Dell Media Direct
Remove Dell Media Direct
Dell MediaDirect totally sucks

 

my harddrive is a 160gb...it says i have 62.3 of 142 gb free...how much will i get back if i chose to delete this partition?

 

I have 3 Partitions do I delete all 3 of them?

 

hello,

tried on my thinkpad x200t and not working.
i have the following message: hd can't be deleted because contains important files for the OS... by the way I lauched diskpart with the the admin rights...
help!

 

Very useful guide.. THX

 

When I ran this dispart.exe, it appeared for a sec and simple disappeared. What happened there?

 

Just a comment. This thread is valid for T61 Vista.

For the Montevina systems (T400/500 ...) Lenovo changed the way the Recovery partition(s) work for Vista.

There are now two visible partitions Q: and S:. After you burn the recovery disks you can delete the Q: partition leaving the smaller S: partition.

So there is now less need to delete the predesktop area S: partition as most of the space is recovered by deleting the Q: partition.