Thinkpads Forum

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.

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

Harryc wrote: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?

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

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

Absolutely! Thanks.

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.

Service partitions contain a very outdated version of XP, at best incl.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.

RealBlackStuff wrote:Service partitions contain a very outdated version of XP, at best incl.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...

robert213 wrote:
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.