New T60-Hidden Partition and Other Frustrations

I have just taken delivery of a T60 - my version has a SATA 80 Gbte drive unpartitioned - or so I thought !

I am pretty well computer literate and have built several desktops.

This post , although under its own heading , relates to several posts on T60 questions which I have generated in the last few days and for which I have received several helpful answers.

In this post I am attempting to summarise what it is I really want to know concerning my T60 and that is:-

What will happen if I "wipe" the drive , remove the hidden partition and perform a clean re-installation of "common-or-garden" XP Pro-SP2 minus all other accompanied unwanted software?

Using an Application called Boot-It to make image files of my hard drive I notice that this T60 80 Gbte drive has a hidden Partition of some 5-6 Gbtes which seems to contain some IBM Recovery Software called "Thinkpad" - I can't be sure what exactly is contained in this hidden Partition as Boot-It merely shows the existence of the Partition but not its contents.

I have briefly experimented with this "Thinkpad" software to familiarise myself with it , and among other operations , I performed a back-up of the drive as received from the manufacturers.
This , as far I can ascertain , completed sucessfully and was recorded with the date performed .
I then wanted to remove this backup from the hard drive and burn it to a DVD.
However I cant find it ! - Is it hiding in the Hidden Partition ?
What happens if I perform several other backups ?
Will they also be written to this Hidden Partition ?
How will I know when this Partiton is full ?

I presume that the reason IBM/Lenovo places such software in a hidden area is the same reason that such action is now commonplace .
It is so that the normal relatively computer-unaware customer cannot do much damage and , on the occasions when his ignorant adjustments cause problems , then the existence of such "un-getattible " software will save the Support people much trouble.

However I find it irritating that when I think I'm buying an 80 Gbte drive all I get is some 71 Gbtes !

I'm sure that this Thinkpad software is excellent - in fact , from the the ,admittedly brief , explorations I have so far performed on it , it does indeed seem excellent - but it doesn't really do anything that I have not already been doing myself over the years in protecting my data and ensuring that , in the event of some disaster , I'll thereby ensure a recovery.

My questions here in this Newsgroup are these:-

What will be the result if I use a previously bought XP Pro-SP2 Installation Disk to install a clean edition of XP Pro onto a previoulsy formatted IBM/Lenovo T60 80 Gbte hard drive- thus eliminating the hidden Partition and also all the other software which arrived with the machine but which I find I either do not want and/or need?

Will everything work after this ? i.e will the SATA drive be recognised ? - will the networking work ?, will the synaptic pad work ? , will the joystick work ?

Some may reply to this and say - "why don't you ask IBM/Lenovo these questions ?"

I may have to eventually but I suspect their answer will probably be an advice not to go ahead with the format !

My position is that , surely , when you buy a product , it should be possible to get it the way YOU want it !

 

u can burn the windows to dvd and remove the hidden partition

 

Make the factory recovery discs, and then enable the predesktop area under the bios in the security area. Then nuke the drive and start fresh. I did this with my laptop, and everything goes a heck of a lot smoother without all the unneeded items (for me) running in the background.

Synaptics driver is best had from Synaptics themselves. They have a newer version on their site.

IBM-

intel wired lan drivers from them (special powerdown features)

Wireless drivers

HD sensor driver

Audio driver

Update Pack (has HD audio driver thing needed, install this first)

Sata need to be put to compatibility mode, unless you use nlite and integrate the ICH7m SATA driver into the windows install disc. Only then with AHCI mode work.

Video card-
Omega drivers, google that and you should find a site with the ATI drivers.

Everything else is optional depending on your needs

 

Yes

They will be stored at the same partition.

This partition is resized automatically by the backup software. Unfortunately this means that the C disk is trimmed.

I agree with you, but that?s the price to pay for such kind of feature, which is basically 100% oriented for business customers.

The advantage is that all software and backups are already in the PC. Actually, there are a special OS, opera browser and email clients included in the recovery environment since some version of the recovery software.

I don't know how it is made now, but my R40 had 3 partitions: the C disk, the hidden partition for backups and a third one, which is even more hidden - the partition with the default software from factory. I could not see the last partition with any kind of software. The visibility was controlled by the bios setting and I never tried to reveal it. But have entered it through the backup software ? there was possibility to get to the console.

Yes. But you have to save installs of applications like DVD players etc. All drivers can be downloaded from lenovo homepage.