wiping out the hidden partition under Vista

[Marin85]

Hi folks,
as I don´t need the hidden partition I´d like to wipe it out to free some space for my main partition. Unfortunately, I don´t have any Vista upgrade CD. I browsed the forum a bit but everything I found was referring to a clean install of OS. I tried to boot into safe mode but even so I didn´t find a way to delete it. I´m completely clueless about how to manage this. I appreciate any ideas!

M.

[erik]

here's a guide; http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=39651

[ryengineer]

You could've problems, if you don't uninstall Rescue and Recovery first which the mentioned guide fails to address:

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

[Marin85]

Thanks for your posts! I always forget about the BIOS settings...That was the clue I was looking for...
Anyway, following the guide I manage to delete the content of the hidden partition without any problems. Then I used Acronis to resize the main partition, which ended in BSOD, but fortunately the work was done before that happened. After rebooting Vista installed the AHCI driver again . It seems that Acronis has some problems with AHCI. After install was completed and a reboot everything seems now to be o.k.

Cheers

M.