Vista re-install thoughts.

Hi,

in case for a Vista Business re-install on my T61, i just want to ask this:

- I plan to use the recovery disks i have made to restore the system to the state it was when i bought it. After the install, will that hidden partition remains and if so, can i delete it and give the reclaimed back space to Vista ?

- When i had Vista in the machine, i also had the Roxio suite for burning cd/dvd. If i make a Clean Install, will i be able to get this software again or it is included only with factory installation ?

Thanks for any help!

 

The hidden partition will be restored, but unfortunately, the recovery discs do not give you access to the partitions so you can delete it.

All factory programs, including Roxio Suite, will be restored. If not, there's a link on Lenovo to download it.

 

Thanks for the reply!

I mean, if i can delete it AFTER i reinstall Vista (and give the space back to the OS for use). Can i ?

 

After everything has been installed, I can't think of anything holding you back from deleting the hidden partition.

 

I just do not remember, if Vista's Disk Partition (or something like that) allow me to delete that partition and "glue" it to the main one, so my 160GB hard disk have then ONLY one partition.

 

First of...remember to burn the rescue and recovery disks. You can only do this one time! If you already have these disks, then after a rescue and recovery, you should be able to make yet another copy.

For reclaiming the space used for the hidden partition see this thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=2367169#post2367169/

If you choose to use GParted, then you need to start in VESA mode (make a search for a how-to in this forum or google).

The roxio software is probably installed if you go back to factory settings using your R&R media, or else you might want to make a copy of it - it is situated in the folder C:\swtools\apps\MMCfto referred to in this thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=170015

Cheers

 

I rather plan to do a clean install so i will shape the disk the way i like at install time.
Thanks for the link, i already have saved swtools so i will install it from there.

Thanks again!

 

Good luck yo!!

 

DO NOT use VISTA's disk partitioning tool. GParted is definetely one of the safest and easiest ways to do it. Plus its free.

 

I use Vista's disk partitioing tool.

You can't freeup the partition space to make a new partition avilable to Vista.
You can't merge it with exisiting partitions.

What you can do, if you have Business or Ultimate is to make a Complete PC Backup copy of the partition that logically contiguous to the freed up space. After making an image of the partition next to the freed up space, delete the backed up partition, and then create a new partition from the combined space. Then restore the backup to the new partition.

 

I remember deleting a recovery partition and extending the primary partition into the free space it left with the disk manager. try that. It's under administrative tools.

 

I did the work all night and all went fine! No problem at all. At install, i deleted 2 partitions and create one (from 160GB it came up only 149...) and i install Vista there. I installed all drivers and have no problems at all!