Partition

Is there an internet guide relating to hidden partitions on notebooks?

A family member messed up the whole first installation on my notebook and I want to start again.

I have a notebook with no recovery disks AND the restore points goes back to messed up situation.

Is there anyway to rectify this?

 

Pester your notebook manufacturer for a Windows installation disk and do a clean installation. I assume that's what you mean by "start again"...

 

Yes, i want to load from a DVD/CD and delete all partitions and install again....i really don't understand why laptop manufacturers don't provide anymore recovery disks!

Also, once it was setup, the computer automatically makes an image so that if you stuff up the first time, your image is stuffed up as well...i really don't get that at all!

 

If we knew what brand of machine you have, someone here might be able to directly help you.

Gary

 

there might be a page in your BIOS that allows you to access your hidden partition

 

thanks guys

the computer is a Samsung R70. the only recovery disk I have is a driver DVD. I don't have the Vista recovery DVD. Also I checked in the samsung folders and I don't see anything about being able to creat recovery disks...very frustrating! will try and look at the bios.

 

Generally speaking, you create the system recovery media (if none are provided) through some sort of link in the start menu...sometimes start > help and support

Once you have that,

http://www.samsungpc.com/top_faq/13_faqanswer_xphomerecovery.htm

 

thanks gerryf19, I will have a look and see if I can create the system recovery media...i was searching last night and there wasn't anything useful there..but will check again!

 

Good luck with it

 

knightunit, do you think i can use the orev's clean install technique to solve my above problem? it seems to work since then I have a clean vista install disk AND a licence key.

 

Samsung tend to provide you with a recovery disk (along with that driver CD you mentioned) when you purchase the laptop or that was the case with my Q35. I can also access a recovery partition on my laptop by pressing one of the "F" keys upon startup. I can't remember which one it is but I shall check pronto.

 

Thanks Sub-D, somehow I didn't get the recovery disk. I asked the samsung guys about this and they said it didn't come with my model (i.e. Samsung R70).

I think the key is F4 or F7 (not sure why there are two to get into the system). But the problem is, the image created is the very one I want to amend (i.e. the fixed partition aspect that locks me).

I am planning to use the clean Vista install technique. Do you think that would work?

 

Ahh sorry, I misunderstood what you were trying to achieve! You could just do a complete reformat on the whole disk and then make a new image with software such as Acronis. So yeah, what you are planning to do should work. Just be sure to install the drivers from the R70 disk or your system might run a bit strangely.

 

thanks Sub-D!, what I was planning was:

1. use the vista install techique in these forums via the orev's stallen's clean vista install technique.
2. use the driver DVD i did get to install the drivers
3. fix all the partitions and registered names etc
3. keep the hidden partition for AVnow software

Do you think this will work? I notice that in the bios, it is very limited for self customising and actually show the registered date...