Trouble finding hiddein partition on Vaio SZ

Hi, I recently bought a vaio SZ71WN and have decided that I would like to put a linux distro on it. I thought that the size of the hidden partition which comes on this laptop would be a nice size, but it seems that Sony REALLY doesn't want us to find it.
First I used the gparted LiveCD, which doesn't seem to work on the SZ, then I went with the SystemRescueCD ( http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page), which does contain gparted, and that worked better and I could get to the GParted app. The problem is that GParted cannot see the hidden partition, so it's making it hard to delete.

Has anyone else had this same problem, or have any ideas on how to find this partition?

Thanks.

 

On an older SZ I just tossed the Ubuntu disk into the drive, and as it was going through the setup it allowed me to modify the partitions anyway I wanted, including the hidden one (which was promptly deleted after I made my recovery disks), to have a nice dual boot XP/Ubuntu machine.

 

Thanks for the suggestion, but I tried Ubuntu and Fedora install discs, neither found the hidden partition.

Anyone have any other ideas? I'm can't think of anything else.

 

I was able to view all partitions in Windows using the built-in tools:

(Right-click on) 'My Computer' > Manage > 'Disk Management'

The hidden partition was the first partition on the drive. Make sure you burn a DVD image (1 double layer or 2 single layer discs) before deleting the partition.

I actually set up my partitions prior to installing Ubuntu (my preference for dual boot) using the setup portion of the Windows XP installation disc. I'd go so far as to say that if you don't see the hidden partition during setup it never existed in the first place. (is it possible there was a previous owner that deleted the partition and did a fresh install)

It's not a huge deal - you can order official recovery media from Sony. If you're concerned with not having access to all available space on the drive than note the drive model and look it up on the manufacturer's site to find out what the actual capacity is. You can compare that with the sum of all partitions that you found. It's the only way to be sure.

 

I deleted the stupid hidden partition and gained some diskspace.

Clean install is 100 times better and faster

 

jamesmckeown,

Try what IBO says and see of the hidden partition is there. If it is then the problem you have is some Live CDs are unable to see the Sata disk/controller.

I had the same problem a while ago when booting from an Acronis True Image rescue disk, it was unable to see the HDD. Download a copy of Hiren's BootCD. It contains all sorts of utils and it will be able find and repartiton your HDD.

I have the same VAIO model and the recovery partition was 7GB.