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    Windows Vista -> Windows 7 Upgrade Questions (reformating)

    Discussion in 'Lenovo' started by rofflez, Dec 17, 2009.

  1. rofflez

    rofflez Notebook Enthusiast

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    1. I'd like to get rid of the recovery partitions to clear up some more space. Right now I have C:, Q:, and S:. Q and S both seem to be recovery partitions and I was wondering if I could reformat them, and how to make it so my harddrive is only one partition for Win7 again

    2. A lot of people don't use the Thinkvantage Upgrade software - why not? I use all thinkpad stuff, so after I install windows 7 should I just use the automatic upgrade to pick/choose what software I want to use (e.g. a lot of people say win7 wireless is good, so I'd try that out but of course I want the touchpad software, etc)

    thanks!!
     
    rofflez, Dec 17, 2009
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  2. rofflez

    rofflez Notebook Enthusiast

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    rofflez, Dec 17, 2009
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  3. flynn337

    flynn337 Notebook Consultant

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    Just FYI, I've removed S and Q (and C) on my system by replacing the hard drive entirely. The system boots just fine : )


    I don't plan on using using the ThinkVantage software, at least not more than once - what am I missing out on?
     
    flynn337, Dec 17, 2009
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  4. hceuterpe

    hceuterpe Notebook Evangelist

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    I've always liked to zero out the MBR and partition table with a linux boot disk:
    dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1

    If you're paranoid and have any thought you might want the recovery partition restored, run this first:
    dd if=/dev/sda of=/path/drive.img bs=512 count=1
    and then you can use something like gparted to backup the partition. SysRescueCD works quite well for all of this. Then run the command to wipe out the beginning of the drive.

    This is what I would do personally as I consider it simple, yet effective. But if you're very uncomfortable with Linux, there are other options (though most likely not free).
     
    hceuterpe, Dec 23, 2009
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