Does anyone else have a System (S:) Drive on their Sony Vaio Z Series Laptop?

I've just got my Sony Vaio Z Series laptop and i've noticed when i go into computer and look under the Hard Disk Drives i have a System (S) Drive and it says 1.41GB free of 1.46GB.

Do other Vaio Z Series owners also have this System (S) Drive? Do you know what it is?

 

It's just a partition.

 

I know there is a system restore partition, but usually that would contain a bit more data.

My Z only had 2 partitions. One active, and one hidden (system restore). Not sure which letter gets assigned to the restore partition. But by default it should be hidden. It gets exposed once you start playing with the backup and restore stuff.

 

I have a hidden recovery partition which is 8.71GB in size so the System (S) Drive is something else. Does anyone know what it is for? Is there anyone that has it as well on their Sony Vaio Z Series? I have attached a couple of pictures to show exactly what i'm talking about.

 

That looks odd.
Yo can try to restore the HD to factory state and see if that removes the S: partition.
I'm 100% sure I didn't have that with the original Vista image.

 

I phoned sony technical support and they are not sure what it is either. They also suggested i do a full system recovery.

I've got 2 Solid State drives in Raid that wouldn't have anything to do with it would it?

 

It could. Unless it's a hardware raid with a dedicated hardware raid controller, the initial boot has to be from a non-raid partition. That only needs a few files, which the boot loads and then can start using raid.

Check what's on the partition. Make sure you've set Folder Options to show hidden files as well as system files. Or do "dir /A" from a command prompt run as Administrator.

 

I've had a look on the System (S) Drive partition and the only file i can see in there is a BOOTSECT.BAK File. What's that?

 

A copy of your boot sector.

However, you only being able to see that one file doesn't match the used space (1.46-1.41 GB, or around 52 MB). Are you sure you have set the File options to display both hidden files and protected system files?

 

I've done what you said and it's showing some more files and folders in the System (S) Drive. I have attached a picture of what's in there.

 

That identifies it as a boot drive. Yes, it's almost certainly due to your RAID, and that the boot manager has to boot from a non-RAID partition.

If you have RAID-manager software, I bet that you'll find that this partition is not RAIDed, and only exists on one of the drives, along with an equal size unallocated area on the other drive.

Leave it alone. You may (or may not) be able to hide it from the Windows disk mangler, but don't delete it, or your system will likely cease to boot (or restore).

 

Thanks for your help. I had a feeling it might be something to do with having 2 Solid State Drives in Raid. I've been trying to figure this out for ages.

 

I also have this extra drive letter. System (D: ) 1.41 GB free of 1.46 GB. I do not have a raid setup and I recently did a Vista x64 install and it is still there. I did buy the Z used. Could I delete this partition without harm if I am not using a raid setup?

 

You have Vista Ultimate, don't you. It's a system partition für Bitlocker.

 

Yes I have Vista Ultimate. I phoned Sony technical support but they don't know what it is either. So the System (S) Drive could be to do with my Raid set up or it could be for bit locker.

Any other Vaio Z series owners have this System (S) Drive?

 

I'm with you daz7781. I have Vista Ultimate and also have this extra drive taking up the same amount of space. Except my drive letter is (D: )

 

I have it too. I'm absolutely sure, that it hasn't nothing to do with RAID. BitLocker FAQ-Why are two partitions required?

 

Actually i just had a look on wikipedia and i think it's definitely to do with bit locker.

Here's a quote:

"In order for BitLocker to operate, the hard disk requires at least two NTFS-formatted volumes: one for the operating system (usually C and another with a minimum size of 1.5GB where the operating system boots from."

The size my drive is exactly that size if you round it up.

Here's the link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitLocker_Drive_Encryption

I think i've finally got the answer to my question, it looks like it's definitely to do with bit locker.

 

Yes, Bitlocker would do it too.
As would certain versions of VMware.

If in doubt whether a partition is used for boot or not, start a command prompt with "Run as Administrator", and enter 'bcdedit'. It should name the partitions that are required.