Resizing Hidden Partition

[ibmuser]

It appears that IBM rapid restore does not automatically resize to use less space when possible - i'd like to somehow resize the 'partition' if possible to reclaim some hard drive space. The new version of RR ultra (downloaded from IBM site) seems to do away with the hidden predesktop area and merely reserves space on the C drive itself. It makes 5 incremental backups by default, but uses way more space than it should. Any way the space it uses can be reset?

Though the newer version is way better than the previous versions, I'm also thinking about getting rid of the reserved space altogether and using some other program (I've used Acronis True Image before) but I've yet to find a clear, simple (forgive me!) way to delete it. I'm using Windows XP on a Thinkpad X31. Anyone have the inclination or patience to guide me through this?

[snoopy318]

all ibm laptop hard disk has now got the hidden partition and this replaced the recovery cd

in order to do partition, using partition magic 8 doesnt work, it will, but if you need to do a "restorre to factory settings" it wouldnt, as told by ibm technical support staff today

so the safest way is :
back up your data first
go to dos, do FDISK, create partition from there.
restart, press ACCESS IBM, and "restore to factory setting", you will now recovery the "factory setting" image to C:\ and D:\ will be left alone as pure data drives.

but FDISK is a complicated matter. http://www.newlogic.co.uk/kbase/fdisk/page2.htm
when we come to the 2nd screenshot, do we pick 1 ?
if follow step2, will that delete our hidden partition as well ?

if the hidden partition is deleted, that means we cant restore to factory setting.

anyone can help ?
thx in advance

[Guest]

As long as you don't set the hidden partition to visible, it won't be seen by the fdisk. Therefore, your hidden partition will be safe even though you have deleted all the parition in the disk.