how to reformat the IBM service partition?

[dcouzin]

My T42's hard drive has a hidden/protected 4.55 GB IBM service partition. I'd like to unhide it and reformat it without disturbing the rest of the hard drive. XP's Disk Management plugin lets me see the partition, but not touch it. XP's Recovery Console map command shows it with drive letter "?", so I don't think its format command will work. Is there a way, without buying expensive software, to do the job.

[XIII]

You have to go to BIOS and choose Disable under Recovery Partition.

[agarza]

Easiest way to do it if using PartitionMagic. You can download Hiren's Boot CD and start from there.

[dcouzin]

On a good day, XIII's suggestion would be all that's needed. In the IBM BIOS Setup Utility there is a "disabled" option for "IBM Predesktop Area". Choosing it I got a big red warning that the OS could enter the area, etc. But it couldn't. The 4.55 GB partition didn't show up in Windows Explorer. It didn't get a letter in the Recovery Console map. It was untouchable using XP's disk management. How do I kill the IBM service partition which so clings to life?

xtr suggested expensive software -- PartitionMagic -- but at no expense -- in Hiren's warez bundle. Well, did I write "without buying expensive software" in the spirit of sporting or of thrift? It can be downloaded at http://softray.net/index.php?option=com ... &Itemid=58.

[GomJabbar]

First try working from Windows SAFE MODE. If no luck there, try booting up a Windows Install CD and use the Recovery Console from there.

If still no dice, see if the info in the following thread can help.
Format HDD with IBM Hidden Partition

[richk]

You can download the Hitachi Features Tool and change the capacity of the drive back to its original value.

[dcouzin]

Wow! I've spent the past 36 hours in tool wonderland. xtr's suggested Hiren's Boot CD, of dubious legality, offers many high-powered disk management tools in non-demo versions.
PartitionMagic couldn't do the job. It could only belly-ache about disk errors -- Norton stuff is that way. Acronis easily reformatted the IBM hidden partition. However, when I expanded the partition, Acronis did something nasty. Partition C:\ contains two large hunks of (presumably system) files that show up as green=unmoveable in the XP fragmentation display. I asked Acronis to trim C:\ too much, taking the last 0.7 GB of the second green hunk. Acronis didn't move the whole hunk as I expected but instead scattered the 0.7 GB into myriad tiny files over much of C:\. Acronis did what it had to do to satisfy the OS about this. XP worked fine. But the tiny green slivers were now unmovable files which would impair defragmentation. I feared they would reduce the useful C:\ space, so I redid the partitioning, making C:\ 0.7 GB larger than the first time. If Acronis has an undo, I did much extra work.

To GomJabbar: I unfortunately didn't try SAFE MODE, but did try the Recovery Console on the Windows Install CD -- that wonderful CD courtesy of http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=3827. Console's map assigned no drive letter to the IBM partition, so Console's format couldn't be applied.

To richk: how did you know I had a Hitachi? Until one week ago I had a Fujitsu. But does the Hitachi capacity adjuster do this when C:\ is full of data, and a second partition holds data, and they add up to the whole disk?

I now understand why many members of this community praise the expensive disk management software. The softray download of Hiren comes as an .rar file which can be unpacked by 7zip (honest freeware).

[dcouzin]

I now see that the green hunks are just pagefile.sys and hiberfil.sys, and not so permanent that they can't be recohered.

[w0qj]

Try BootIT... some IT professionals swear by it, according to the forum poster who introduced me to this program...

BootIT
www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootitng.html

The Trialware version is fully functional, can completely wipe your HDD including the hidden partition in a few steps on my T42, at least in an older version when I tried this last year...

If it works well for you, do consider to purchase this software to support the developer...