Windows 7: HP_Tools partition

Hello,

I'm running a 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium HP G62, and one of the primary partitions is taken up by the HP_Tools. Is this something I need, or something I go do without?



I want to free up a partition in order to be able to dual boot GNOME/linux and windows.

Hello again mate, if you ever have a need to do a factory recovery that partition will probably be needed; there are other options available, have a look at this tutorial linked below for a start and post a snip of Windows 7 disk management for us to look at.

Clean Install : Factory COA Activation Key

Providing you have created a set of recovery disks, you should be able to delete the HP_Tools partition as it probably is the recovery partition that contains the Windows Image.

The ony downside is that recovering your system from the recovery partition is a lot quicker than using a set of recovery discs.

I'd check your HP documentation first just to make sure I'm giving you good advice as on my wife's laptop the recovery partition is annotated as HP_Recovery and not HP_Tools.

My recovery partition and and HP_Tools partition are separate. I don't have any recovery disks, though. I've attached a screen shot of my disk management screen.

Are you aware that Linux/Grub and Windows are mortal enemies?


There is another option you may care to consider, in Method Two of this tutorial linked below.

Partition / Extended : Logical Drives

I'll give that a try and let you know what the results are.

And I wanted to run GNOME because that's what they have in the computer lab at my school (and I don't want to have to go back to campus to complete an assignment). Is there anything to worry about by putting both on the same disk?

The best of both worlds would be to create and store externally an image of the entire HDD before you make any changes to the HDD structure, using something like this excellent, free program at this link below; this way when/if you finish with Linux you could just restore to the image and it would be just like it is now.

Imaging with free Macrium

I just finished backing up an image to an external hard drive with the Backup and Restore program that's already on windows. Should that be fine?

I'm also still gonna try to follow the link you posted earlier to try to dual boot and see if I can get that to work.

Have a look at this one for information that may be useful.

Dual Boot Windows 7 and Ubuntu

It looks just like my new HP. The Tools Partition only uses 100MB. Even the Recovery Partition only uses 12GB. It looks like a 500GB hard drive. I would leave them as they are, you have plenty of free space.