Thinkpads Forum

I upgraded my drive with the 7K200 and plan to use the old drive as a usb mobile drive. I'd like to delete the service partition to maximize the usable disk space but is there a way to unhide this partition when the drive is not in the laptop? Thanks for your help.

MOD EDIT: Picture warning added.

Would you mind mentioning which thinkpad you've?

For X60 series:

To unhide the partition, go to BIOS and set Predesktop setting as disabled under Security, this will make it visible. Unhiding does not delete the service partition.

To delete it:

1. Uninstall Rescue and Recovery.
2. Remove the partition by using a third-party partitioning tool.
3. Reboot.
4. Reinstall Rescue and Recovery.

For *61 series:

Predesktop setting does not exist in the BIOS.

To delete it, follow the above given steps.

Here is a thread with the mention of a guide:

wiping out the hidden partition under Vista.

ryengineer - Thanks for getting back to me.

I have the X60, and I realize that I can unhide the service partition if the drive is still in the computer, but I was hoping that there is a way to unhide it once it has been removed and hooked up as an external USB drive. I'm too lazy to remount the drive in the computer just to regain 5GB.

Ok, I followed the directions in the post, and deleted the service partition so it's now unallocated space. Is there a way to join it with the active partition without re-formatting the drive?

Use a 3rd party partitioning tool like Partition Magic to merge that space.

I was able to do it using diskpart. Thanks again for your help.