Lenovo Partitions

So I was surprised today to find upon booting up my T400, that it had 3 partitions in the hard drive. One was the C drive, another was Lenovo (Q I believe), and there was another one called S. Apparently the S partition contains important files that the computer uses to boot Windows. I believe I've read elsewhere that I can safely delete the Q partition (which I take to be the backup partition) once I've created recovery discs (which I have).

My question is am I correct in assuming that the S drive needs to be left untouched? What exactly is its purpose? Also, just as verification, Q partition is the backup partition that can be removed if you already have recovery DVDs burned, right?

 

Very interesting. Did you configure with Vista Ultimate?

The BitLocker disk drive encryption which is included with Ultimate requires that the initial system boot be done from a separate unencrypted partition. Microsoft has a BitLocker Drive Preparation Tool which by default creates a small S: system partition.

It could be that Vista Ultimate systems are shipped "BitLocker-ready" i.e. the drive is already prepared, and all you have to do is switch BitLocker on from the Control Panel. Nice.

 

This can't be it. I have Vista Business.

I'm back on my T400, so I can tell you what the names of my partitions initially were. My C drive was called "SW_Preload", my Q drive is called "Lenovo" (double clicking on it brings up a window titled "Lenovo Factory Fackup Partition Information"), and my S drive is called "SERVICEV003". Double clicking on the S drive brings up a window which says the following:

 

I can't find an explanation for this "new" partition configuration.

I'm going to guess, then let's see how I do:

S: SERVICEV003 - The primary boot partition.
C: SW_Preload - The Vista installation.
Q: Lenovo: - The Rescue & Recovery Partition.

Maybe this "new" partitioning is compatible with Bitlocker? The "old" style (no S: partition) is not.

 

so.. does anyone have a guide to what exactly we can do with the S partition? and how can we remove the Q partition after creating recovery media?

 

These partitions are quite small (S is 1.5GB and Q is 10GB according to other posts). I think it's best just to leave them alone.

If you must delete the Q partition you will need a professional grade partition manager, like gparted, Acronis, etc. The Vista Disk Manager won't do it.

It would be nice to get the official story as to why this new 3-partition setup is being used. We're still guessing here.

 

Just for some more information.

The "Lenovo" (Q) drive has the main two subfolders "showroom" and "SWTOOLS".

One level into the the "SERVICEV003" (S) drive shows three folders ("recovery", "swwork", and "windows") and the file "recov.wim".

I"ll be alright with leaving the S drive alone if it is necessary to keep around, I just want to know if that's the truth of the matter. And I'd like to confirm that the the Q drive is the Rescue and Recovery partition that can be essentially replaced by burning those three recovery discs.

 

I did play around these partitions before deleting them and installing Linux.

"SERVICEV003" (S) is the boot partition. It contains the bootloader (which can either boot into "normal mode" with drive "C:\" or "recovery mode" with drive "Q:\"). So, if you delete it Vista will definetely not boot.

"Lenovo" (Q) basicaly contains the recovery images for the whole system (drives C:\ and S:\). Strictly speaking, the recovery DVD's you've burned do not contain the same recovery image files as the drive Q:\. Since the image of drive C:\ is bigger than 4.7Gb, it had to be cut into several pieces before burning to DVD. But the result of recovering of C:\ from Q:\ and from DVD is the same.Bottomline: once you've created recovery DVD's you don't need Q:\ anymore.

If you desperately want to get rid of S:\, use "bcdedit" to install bootloader onto drive C:\ and edit MBR to make it bootable. However, since S:\ is located "before" C:\ on the harddrive, you will not be able to merge it into C:\, it will still have to be a separate partition (but now you can of course put something more useful into it).

 

Thanks for info newhren. That helped immensely for me.

I don't feel like messing with the bootloaders and the MBR at the moment, so I'll leave the S:\ partition alone. It's not that large anyways. I will definitely delete the S drive though.

 

corrected for you.

what guide are you following to remove the Q partition?

 

I'll be getting the SL500 soon and after doing the recovery disk I'd also maybe like to remove to Q drive if it's safe and would like a guide also

 

Thanks for the confirmation newhren!

I wonder if this new partition configuration is compatible with BitLocker?

The old partitioning (Rescue & Recovery + OS) was not. I had to blow away the R&R partition to use BitLocker on my X61.

 

Thanks luisssss. I meant the Q drive.
I'm not really using a guide to remove the Q drive. I was just gonna use either Acronis Disk Director or gParted to delete the Q partition and then add the free space to the C partition. Any other partition manager should work too (besides the one packaged with Vista, I guess).

 

when you do it jtan189 can you please confirm it by telling us ? I'd love to know that everything worked fine so that I may also maybe do it.

 

Yeah, no problem.

 

if I'm just planning on reformatting, can I go ahead and delete these drives during the XP install?

 

and where is a good guide on how to back up the Q: drive recovery files?

 

If you're going to erase everything and install XP, I don't see why you'd need any of the partitions. You should probably research a little more though, and not take my word for it. I'm thinking that some of the features integrated into the T400 (such as switchable graphics) might not work as well (if at all) under XP. Again, I'm not 100% on that though.

*I just did some quick research and apparently switchable graphics only work with XP via changing certain options in the BIOS each time you want to switch. It's not possible to do so directly through the XP OS.

As for backing up the recovery partition, you just need to run "Create Product Recovery Media" under the ThinkVantage programs. It'll guide you through creating three different backup discs.

I still haven't gotten around to deleting my Q partition. Exams and such are getting in the way at the moment. After those are over I'll delete it and do a bunch of other partitioning work to install Ubuntu to run via dual-boot.

 

you can delete BOTH partitions: delete them, then boot from a vista install disc, select repair, do startup repair.

the .WIM file is a windows backup file. you can restore your whole system partition with this file. vista install disc-> repair -> command prompt -> (i think the imagex command?)

look here if you want to mount your WIM file. http://4sysops.com/archives/how-to-mount-a-wim-image-with-imagex-in-windows-vista/

the wim file is basically your system deployment image, so you should keep that on DVD.

 

@justin_c:
Will it matter if I already have data stored in my Vista partition? And also, I'm a bit nervous about doing that...so do you have any sort of confirmation that this is true? Like a source of something?

It'd be great to just have one partition for Vista, but I want to make sure nothing will get screwed up before going through with your instructions.

 

So does the S drive improve boot time at all? why is it there? I'm planning on doing a clean install, and I would like to get rid of these partitions since I don't see any advantage to keeping them.

 

I did a clean install before yesterday, is there a way to remove that S boot drive ? is it safe ? I know that removing Q drive we have to use diskpart forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=160044&highlight=diskpart

 

Have you tried running Autorun from the context menu on either Q or S partition? Once you do it, a message box pops up which pretty much explains everything: for Q it offers to get the space back once you made all the recovery DVDs, for S it says not to mess with it.
Just my 2 cents - as somebody was asking for a proof or something..

 

I realize that the space the Q drive takes up can be reclaimed safely after making the recovery DVDs. And I know it says not to mess with the S drive, but I want to anyways. There should be a way to get rid of it and have everything work fine regardless of its existence. Someone mentioned using the Windows Vista boot CD to repair the MBR after deleting the S drive...can anyone else confirm this?

EDIT:
So I just deleted the Q partition and then added the unallocated space from that to my C partition. No problems encountered. I used Acronis Disk Director. When I rebooted, my BIOS or something wanted me to go through start-up repair, so I did. But I don't think there were actually any problems to begin with. I'm going to leave the S partition alone until a confirmed method for safely deleting it is uncovered.

 

jtan I removed S drive lol.. but not without problems. I booted with vista dvd and did repair around 20 times but then after 2 hours I fixed the problem somehow. this is what happened.. I installed vista again then it wouldn't continue on expanding files 88 %. so i decided ill stop installation and restart pc. did a repair twice then it worked lol.. very confusing and long, I suggest you keep the S partition unless you're willing to maybe clean install again.. i'm going to clean install soon..

btw i was using a different Vista DVD than the clean install Vista that I did 2 weeks ago so maybe it didnt work the first 20 times because it's a different one.. try your luck but make sure you back up to another drive ur files and make sure that you are willing to clean install if something goes wrong.. btw if you do clean install then finally you can merge all partitions together lol =D you'll win a gig and a half xD

 

haha wow. Thanks for the info Ramsey. Yeah, I'm thinking that (for me) it would be too much work to remove the S drive. I don't have too much free time on my hands. Not to mention I just got done with my ideal setup with a "personal files" partition and all my software installed and files copied over. [I also have a partition for /, /home, and Swap to be used with Ubuntu.] Honestly, I think I'm willing to put up with the minor annoyance of the S partition. But at least I know that if I ever do decide to clean install, it should be possible to get rid of the S partition.

 

The drives should boot off of 1 disk. I've
had a one on a single boot disk drive boot since i've had vista. I just sorry that its not mine to share since I'm still in the hospital.

 

I initially had Vista Ultimate on my ThinkPad T61p. It came "bit locker ready." It also had the same partition configuration. But I wiped all that out booted Linux and XP Pro. lol

 

Yeah, I plan on keeping Vista. I've grown used to it (and kind of like it) and want to keep the full graphics-switching functionality.

 

yeah vista's really great, service pack 2 is coming out very very soon.

i clean installed yesterday and everything is working perfectly.
by the way, I also have another partition drive that I backed up all the files in so that I may not lose anything important and it worked perfectly, so if you ever wish to remove s drive and back up your personal files on another drive, you're safe =)

 

Yeah, I always make sure to back up my data before doing any kind of partition work. Same thing goes for defragging.

 

I got my new X301 a week ago with Vista Business 64-bit pre-installed. The three partitions on my HDD are exactly the same as jtan189's T400.

I just purchased the new Vista Ultimate (PRODUCT) RED version online, downloaded all the files, and then launch the upgrade program from my HDD. However, the process has failed to complete.

It seems that during the upgrade process, the program will copy installation files into drive S (SERVICE003), which is primary boot partition but only 685MB free out of 1.46GB total size in my X301. There is not enough HDD space left for the upgrade program to use. I tried the Disk Management program in Vista but can't extend the size of drive S.

Anyone has a view on this? Thanks!

 

I don't really know too much about this RED version of Vista ultimate, so I don't know how much help I'll be able to give. I do know that if you need to extend a partition and the Vista partitioner won't let you, something like gParted should be able to do it. You can find it on most current Linux LiveCDs. Of course, I'd make sure to back everything up if there's anything you wouldn't want to lose on your computer. Also, I'd check with someone else's opinion besides my own, just to be safe.

 

Thanks, jtan189!

The Product Red version of Vista ultimate is just the normal Ultimate with additional wallpapers, sidebar gadgets, screen saver, etc. When someone purchases this special version, Microsoft will contribute certain amount of money to The Global Fund to help eliminate AIDS in Africa.

I guess everyone who wants to upgrade (not include clean install) from Vista Home/Business to Ultimate on the new ThinkPad will encounter the similar problem. I will take a look at gParted. In the mean time, it will be great if others can also share his/her own experience on this.

 

I did a clean install and wiped out all of the partitions (C, Q, S) through the Vista install wizard before installing. Worked fine. Now only have a C drive.

 

My Q drive has 39 GB allocated with 33.3 free. I would love to dump it. I have made recovery disks. My S Drive is 5.85GB with 4 free. I guess I can live with it. I have had the system for about 5 months but did not do a clean install. Probably won't.

 

Can I install Linux on the Q partition, or will the boot partition (S) not recognize the linux partition? Is there a way to install linux and keep vista present, without erasing all the data?

 

If you want to delete the Q partition, you can just right click the drive in Explorer and select "Recover Drive Space." It will then automatically reallocate that space for your C partition without the need for any third party programs.

 

thanks for this info, pacmandelight.