removing the hidden recovery partition

[schmaud]

Hi,

I never needed the R&R partition, but I need more HDD space (already have the 320 GB HDD and need to keep the DVD drive).
Thus I want to remove the hidden partition and use the space.

Is there a way to remove the partition and add the space to one off the existing partition without the need to reinstall the system?

Thanks!

Ralf

[RealBlackStuff]

If you click on in Start/Run, type diskmgmt.msc and click OK you will see the hidden partition, provided you have set Explorer to show hidden/system files.
You could delete it, but you'll gain very little in extra space, a few GB at most.
That partition is at the beginning of your HD, before the Windows partition, so it's not even worth deleting.
And if you do, you'd need to do all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff with a partition manager to move that space elsewhere!
Your best bet is to take an image of your current Windows (and any other partition[s] except the Restore one), store them on a big external disk, then replace your HD with a bigger one, and restore the image(s) onto the new HD.

Correction:
just realized you have a T42, for which the largest available HD is 320GB. No chance to use a bigger HD.
You need to farm out a lot of stuff onto an external (USB) hard disk.
Alternatively, put a second SATA HD (up to 750GB) in the Ultrabay and buy an empty USB case for the old CD/DVD drive.
Or buy a T60 or newer laptop that uses SATA HDs natively.

[tom lightbody]

> delete R&R to regain space without reinstall

free utility "gparted" will do what you want to do

[Orclas]

> delete R&R to regain space without reinstall

free utility "gparted" will do what you want to do

Aye, but RBS's comment is still valid - is it really worth the hassle and does it really solve anything to reclaim less than 1% of the capacity?

[cadillacmike68]

I thought i had replied here, but i guess not.

Another alternative is to get a dock with the ultrabay. You can put your optical drive there and keep the two HDDs in the thinkpad. Recovering that small amount of space isn't going to help you much if you have already sucked up all the space on a 320GB drive.

[wbp]

It seems to me that it *is* worth it if you are replacing the HDD with an SSD. I just replaced the 160 gb HDD on my T400 with a Crucial M4 128gb SSD, and I did remove the recovery partition in the process. I did a backup with Ghost 15, installed the SSD and set up a single partition (with correct alignment for SSD), and restored only the C drive. I now have one very fast T400!

William