XP recovery and partition removal

Message

Andres · #1 Post by **Andres** » Mon Nov 01, 2004 12:44 am

I have an A31 which of course came with the hidden partition and no CD.
I have found that the legal proof of purchase is the sticker underneath the machine.
Since I have the original XP CD for my other desktop machine, do you think it is possible to use some software as Partition Magic or something like it to erase the physical disk low format install all the thinkpad drivers and win a couple of Gb by the way? :wink

skanky · #2 Post by **skanky** » Mon Nov 01, 2004 3:13 am

you have to "unprotect/unhide" the recovery partitionvia the bios. then you can you fdisk or diskpart to kill the rec partition and be able to reclaim the space.

friedrich-eugen · #3 Post by **friedrich-eugen** » Mon Nov 01, 2004 6:21 am

Hello,

using Acronis or Partition Image (V.7) it should be no problem, to backUp an Image of the hidden partition to (e. g.) CD.
This makes sense, as You will probably be unable to use the key underneath Your notebook with any other version of XP, as for the xp in the hidden partition is a corporate version that usually installs without having You to enter any licensing info.

Using Partition Magic (V.

I did not have any problem, deleting an IBM-Recovery-partition that was hidden, F11 will no longer be functional.

Andres · #4 Post by **Andres** » Mon Nov 01, 2004 12:17 pm

Thanks very much I will do as you say.
There are two possibilties as both replys to my post show.
If I should decide to do low level formating and put the other windows XP I have, instead of doing the image are there some Thinkpad drivers that can not be downloaded that I should install?
This since the other is a plain XP pro not from IBM
This is a question that bothers me since the Update of IBM does not function very well and I downloaded what I could find just in case.
But I do not know if for this model A31 there are some that are preshipped and you can not download.
I would surely be nice to get a couple additional GB free specially with the shipped 20Gb disk I have.

Do you know something about this?
Thanks in advance greetings from Argentina

selvan777 · #5 Post by **selvan777** » Tue Nov 02, 2004 4:38 am

Partition Magic will certainly do the trick, it will also show how much space will be freed by deleting the hidden partition.

As for all those drivers still being available, I don't know but I'll tell you that some drivers were omitted not long after buying my X20 new in 2001. I was real glad I had done a full backup to CD's prior to writing zeros to the HDD and installing a retail ver. of XP Pro.

I'd suggest you do a full backup before doing anything just in case.

waterside · #6 Post by **waterside** » Tue Nov 02, 2004 10:43 pm

The Windows XP sticker on the bottom of each ThinkPad contains a Retail key. It will in fact work on any retail copy of Windows XP. It will not work for OEM or Volume copies. An alternative (as suggested many times in this forum) is to copy the C:\I386 directory to a cd. I don't have any links handy but some searching will turn up links on how to make a bootable install CD using this dir.

Note that the C:\I386 dir (and the XP install from the recovery partition and recovery CDs) is not a retail or OEM copy and does not use the key that is on the bottom of the ThinkPad. The key is provided as evidence of a valid Windows XP license and provides for end-user installation of XP without the vendor-supplied copy.

All of the latest ThinkPad drivers may be found at http://tpdrivers.com. A little searching in this forum would return several references to this. There is some software (such as WinDVD, RecordNow!, etc) that you will not be able to download but you should save a copy of C:\IBMTOOLS (and C:\DRIVERS) dir - you'll be able to reinstall these apps from there.

Andres · #7 Post by **Andres** » Wed Nov 03, 2004 12:50 am

What you suggest seems sensible if there are no hidden drivers that cannot be found.
It also seems sensible since the Partition Magic 7 needs floppy boot for remote backup of an Image.My Thinkpad A31 has 2 CD devices one DVD and no floppy. So I should be able to make an Image 1.5Gb on a CD which I can not.
So I would need to split the image in 2 CDs which I do not know how to do.
The directory you suggest seems much smaller. It is very interesting that the proof of purchase is the sticker and the directory is independent and no OEM dependent. This since I should prefer the English version of XP that comes in my desktop which is not OEM.
Also since I been having problems with Acccess Connections and my Linksys PCMCIA g card, which I suspect is because of the difference in language beween the drivers and XP maybe. It periodically hangs Access Connections.
This are the two reasons of my intent to change XP besides the reclaiming of space. Also a factor is that in my country they are asking for full price for the XP version and this would be without SP1 and SP2.
What do you think?Are there some drivers we do not know about?

friedrich-eugen · #8 Post by **friedrich-eugen** » Wed Nov 03, 2004 3:44 am

Andres,

(1) Drive Image 7 does not require a floppy, it does boot into a NT/W2K/XP-like environment and You can create an image than. What You do need is enough memory (512MB or more) and a CD-writer. YOu may use a USB-writer, if none of Your internal drives does the trick.

(2) Do create an image of the hidden partition in any case.

(3) All files You need to modify/adjust an common XP to IBM's thinkpads You'll find on IBM's website. IBM is - cum grano salis - doing an excellent job servicing their premium-products for quite a long time.

(4) Software, IBM is providing (BackUp- or Burning-Software) You will be able to save ...

There is some software (such as WinDVD, RecordNow!, etc) that you will not be able to download but you should save a copy of C:\IBMTOOLS (and C:\DRIVERS) dir - you'll be able to reinstall these apps from there.

... to an external hdd or a cd-rw easily.

So You should be able to rebuild Your machine from scratch. While rebuilding, think about exchanging the hdd for a swifter and larger one...

A crowded weekend and Good luck !