Reformat New Vaio -- delete partition

I am planning to get the Vaio S series laptop. This will be my first Vaio notebook. I have read that Sony partitions its harddrive and even has a hidden partition that contains the recovery files (instead of just including discs

When i get my laptop, i plan to make 2 copies of the recovery files (just for insurance) and then "unpartition" the harddrive thereby deleting the recovery files. Afterwards, i will be reloading the windows xp pro.

I have 2 questions:
1) is it easy/possible to "unpartition" and delete the hidden partition using partion magic program?
2) is it troublesome to reinstall win xp using the recovery discs? is it better/easier to just use my old winxp pro disc and install windows from there? i can just install the drivers and other sony programs from the recovery discs right?

 

The older VAIO laptops used to come with System Recovery and Application Recovery Disks and there wasn't a "hidden" partition, apparently they have changed. You now need to burn your own Recovery Disks and you still have that pesky "hidden" partition eating up a few GB of HDD space. Not sure what would happen if you were to wipe the HDD and re-partition it the way you want it, or if the disks that you burned will replace that hidden partition or not. A daunting task I face as well, you are not alone on this!

Please post back if you decide to tackle this with your results, others will like to know what happens(myself included).

EDIT: I have the VGN-A190, I dread looking for the specialized drivers that are needed for this thing, so what you are contemplating is not even really an option for me.[ ]

David

 

I guess sony wants us to have a difficult time, why don't they just give out cd's with the software and drivers and let advanced user do what ever they want with partitions, programs and drivers? I want to upgrade to windows XP pro, but if its going to give me a hard time I'll just stick with what I have now. Keep us posted if you have any progress with the partitions

 

Here in the UK my S1XP (S170) came with 2 Recovery CDs. There was no hidden (revovery) partition, just one large ~60GB partition.

The manual supplied also detailed both recovery procedures, recovery from hidden parition or from supplied CDs. There was also a section on how to create the recovery CDs from a hidden partition which I don't have, so I'm guessing it's the same manual for everyone, US or UK/Europe.

I used my own WinXP CDs to do a fresh installation.

I don't have the manual to hand right now but I think options are given during recovery to leave the existing partitions intact or restore to factory default. I'll dig the manual out tomorrow and post back.

P.S. Has anyone done a fresh WinXP install and then had trouble finding which Sony drivers to install under which device. I'm thinking about putting together a guide to help anyone who wants to do a fresh WinXP install.

 

The only problem would be the software that came with it. I formatted my A190 and installed XP Pro and it works good but minus the software of course. All the drivers are on the HD in a folder named drivers I think it was in the windows folder. I also downloaded the latest chipset “drivers” from Intel. No real magic, just gotta have the drivers folder.


Joe.

 

Will anybody tell me how to make recovery cds from a hidden partition ( how to show that hidden partition) and what software to get it creat. Advise is very appreciated.

 

let me know abt it too..
quite irritated that the hidden partition is eating up 10 gig out of my total 80 gig which is quite alot
sony should've just provided with the recovery software.

 

Actually it's 6GB on my 120GB Drive (Your 80GB HD will most likely format to ~76GB). You can see the actually partition size in Administrative Tools -> Computer Management -> Storage -> Disk Management.
It should be easy to format the Sony partition with Partition Magic and combine/Join the two partitions into one big partition without having to reload anything. Partition Magic will boot into DOS Mode to perform the task. You just may want to ghost your laptop before doing so, in case you run into any problems. Also, don't forget to create recovery disks in case you have to load Windows from scratch.
To create recovery CD's, in Vaio Recovery -> Vaio Recovery Tools -> a Create Recovery Disks icon should be on your start menu.

 

thanks alot stimp
that does the trick.. yea 4.66 is used.. gonna backup the recovery software to dvd first hm..