New HD in T60, installing XP from Recovery Discs

[Muse]

The HD I bought is 320GB, a WD blue. I figure it's better to have two partitions so I can reformat the OS partition if needed and not touch the data, it's sure big enough. What I'm doing is partitioning with a different computer and formatting both partitions in NTFS. Can I install the OS from the factory default recovery discs onto the first partition of the HD, or is it necessary to have just one big partition on the HD? I could create a second partition later using Partition Magic in that case. The first partition is 80GB.

[Harryc]

The recovery CD's will take the whole drive. Use a partition editor later on.

[Muse]

The recovery CD's will take the whole drive. Use a partition editor later on.

Thanks. So, the drive is having it's 2nd partition formatted right at this moment. Can I put it in the T60 as is and it will format and install XP on the entire HD? Or should I reallocate and format the entire HD first?

[Harryc]

Whatever partitions are there will be deleted by rescue and recovery. Does that answer your question?

[Muse]

Whatever partitions are there will be deleted by rescue and recovery. Does that answer your question?

Absolutely! Thanks.

[robert213]

The question to ask yourself...

Would you like to have hidden "Service" partition?

It contains compressed versions of Windows install programs.
It allows you to make one back-up copy of Recovery CD(s).
It allows you to press [F11] (or [F12], I don't remember exactly which) to re-install Windows while you are away from home.

Not sure exactly how T6x recovery CD(s) perform, but on T30's -- the new HD must NOT have any partitions, in order for Recovery CD install program to ask whether you would like to have a hidden "Service" partition.

You can see the properties of "Service" partition in [Control Panel], [Performance and Maint], [Admin Tools], [Computer Management], [Disk Management] panel.

[RealBlackStuff]

Service partitions contain a very outdated version of XP, at best incl. SP2.
Why waste space for this old junk?
Better to install everything the way you want/need, and then take an image that you can restore at any time, if needed even on a new/different hard disk.

[Muse]

Service partitions contain a very outdated version of XP, at best incl. SP2.
Why waste space for this old junk?
Better to install everything the way you want/need, and then take an image that you can restore at any time, if needed even on a new/different hard disk.

Yeah, I restored to Factory Defaults today from my 7 CD recovery set I made shortly after buying my first T60 (Nov. 2006). It's a rather tedious business and it must have taken over 2 hours what with inserting 7 CDs and enduring several reboots and watching inscrutable info scroll automatically in a DOS window including some pretty alarming things such as "path not found" (quite a few times!). I'd seen all this before, around 6 months ago when I used the recover disks for the first time.

I have to totally agree here about making an image of things I'd feel comfortable restoring to, including of course, SP3, current Windows Updates, AV, etc. Actually, I do have an XP install disk that has SP3 on it but I figure (perhaps incorrectly) that there's some stuff in the Factory Default installation that's useful. I assume some or a lot is crapware, but I just don't know.

Space is something there's plenty of on this 320GB HD, so that's pretty much a non issue. Actually, I really got burned a month ago when the 250GB HD in this T60 suddenly died without warning. I had my most current data on it and hadn't backed up for over a month, so I lost some important stuff. Well, not super important, but I'm chagrined for sure. Plan to be much more careful in the future. In fact, yesterday I ordered a WD 2TB Elements HD in order to keep a backup of my data "off site." It'll either be in a safe deposit box or a locker I have in a newly earthquake reinforced building I visit at least once a week. Plus, I'm going to keep my live data on another WD 2TB Elements HD, connected by USB to the T60 in question. That data will be backed up frequently (hopefully) to a 3rd WD 2TB Elements HD I just got a few days ago.

I was foolish to keep the data on the T60's boot drive, there was absolutely no reason to. I guess I got complacent because I'd never had a sudden HD failure. I really should have known better. Sigh...

[Muse]

Not sure exactly how T6x recovery CD(s) perform, but on T30's -- the new HD must NOT have any partitions, in order for Recovery CD install program to ask whether you would like to have a hidden "Service" partition.

You can see the properties of "Service" partition in [Control Panel], [Performance and Maint], [Admin Tools], [Computer Management], [Disk Management] panel.

I haven't looked yet for the hidden partition, but the HD I just restored to did have 2 partitions, one 80GB the other about 220 GB. I didn't bother changing that because Harryc's post indicated that the recovery program would just eliminate all that and install itself on one big partition. I presume that's what it's done, and I imagine the hidden partition is right there. However, I was not asked if I want a hidden partition. I was only asked if I really wanted to eliminate all data on the HD. I could have elected to preserve data, but there was no data on the HD whatsoever, so I said go ahead and zap the mother.