quick question on restore partition

[ccotenj]

want to do a backup to dvd of hard drive before doing a clone (could be overkill here, but...)...

anyway... went into bios and disabled disk security to make restore partition visible...

but when i got into disk management, it shows my c: partition, but shows the remaining 3gb as "unallocated"??

i bought this machine second hand. is it possible the original owner merely restored the preloaded c: partition? or am i missing something here?

thanks in advance.

[richk]

What I do is to create a partition in the unformatted space. I use paragon partition manager, which does nothing to the space. DO NOT FORMAT THE PARTITION. I do a backup, and then delete the partition.

[GomJabbar]

but when i got into disk management, it shows my c: partition, but shows the remaining 3gb as "unallocated"??

Not exactly sure what shows up when the Predesktop Area is set to Disabled, but when set to Normal, in Disk Management you should see the IBM_Service partition. It should be partitioned FAT32 and have some free space. On my T42, this partition is 4.71 GB in size with 9% remaining free space.

It sounds to me like you do not have a usable service partition, so you should not need to worry about backing it up. However, set the security for the Predesktop Area to Normal in the BIOS, then see what Disk Management reports. I don't think there will be any difference, but it wouldn't hurt to check.

EDIT: The T42 normally has a separate FAT32 Service Partition. I believe the earlier T4x models did not. They had a HPA. See following for more info. http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/HPA

[richk]

Not true. It depends on the model. T40 & T41 (plus T42 with earlier restore CDs) use a hidden protected area, which show up as empty space, only after you disable the predesktop area. If it is set to normal, the disk is "fixed" to report its size back as smaller. Later T42s and all T43 use a service partition you can see. If you have an HPA, if you want to reuse the disk, you need to modify the disk size, either by setting predesktop to disabled, or by using the hitachi feature tool to change the capacity.

EDIT: GomJabbar - I posted my correction, before you said the same thing in your edit.

[ccotenj]

yea, it just shows up as "unallocated" when you disable security, and doesn't show up at all when you have it set to "normal" or "secure"...

now i understand... i was making the (faulty) assumption that the hpa was set up as a hidden partition...

assuming i have a set of recovery cds, should i even be concerned about it?

[richk]

With these directions, I am assuming you want to do a clean install on a new drive. After setting the predesktop area to disabled and looking to see the partition is visible (so you can reuse the disk), remove the disk. Reboot with no drive present and hit F1 to enter the BIOS. Set the predesktop to normal. Turn the machine off. Put the new disk in. (Before you start, you should erase the new disk so there is no data, no partitions and no HPA present.) Boot from the first recovery CD.

[ccotenj]

i guess i wasn't clear (not the first time for me )...

i'm going to clone the original drive to a brand new drive... i'm set on how the mechanics of that works...

however, paranoia kicked in, and i wanted to backup the original drive to ensure i don't get "stuck"... then i thought "well, if i've got recovery disks, i can always make it be 'original' again, including the hpa"... only being 99% sure of that though, i figured i'd better ask, so what i meant by "should i worry about it" is, "should i worry if i accidentally destroy my hpa if i've got a set of recovery disks"? and from what your post is saying, i don't have to worry about it...

my preference is to clone over clean install, because i really don't want to spend 3 days downloading and updating software...

[richk]

Is the new drive exactly the same size?

I have been using Rapid REcovery and Restore on my T42p and it seems fine, if you are just doing a backup or want to swap drives. Please note that it is a 490MB download. Others have different opinions.

[ccotenj]

nope, i'm going from a 40gb drive to a 100gb drive...

i can download that... they invented broadband for a reason...