Odd Partitions after Restore to Factory Condition, Why?


  1. Posts : 9
    Kansas
       #1

    Odd Partitions after Restore to Factory Condition, Why?


    HP Compaq Presario CQ57, Windows 7 Home Premium SP-1 64 bit

    A month ago I bought an HP Compaq Presario CQ57 notebook (laptop), which comes installed with 2 x 1GB RAM modules. It functioned fine. A couple of weeks ago, I upgraded the RAM by replacing one of the 1GB modules with a 4GB one.
    When I restarted Windows, yes, it did blue screen momentarily, but recovered with another start and then things went well for a week.
    Then, upon attempting to reboot, it failed. On the Windows Welcome screen, it flickers briefly before it fails and goes to a blue screen.
    Using the HP Recovery Console, after trying a recovery that didn’t work, I tried the option of restoring to factory condition. Then, it still produced blue screens, giving error messages like IRQL less than equal and Page fault in non-page area.

    I replaced the new RAM with the original 2 x 1GB RAM and tried a restore to factory condition option again. This time it worked. However, the hard drive partitions are odd.
    Disc Management

    As you can see, Disk 0 is divided into
    System 199 MB, C 75GB, not labled 133.34 GB, Recovery D 19.38, HP TOOLS E 3.97 GB.
    Ignore the CD ROM below.

    Isn’t System supposed to be on C? And the 133.34 GB unallocated space isn’t supposed to be there either.

    I ran the restore to factory again and it produced the same disk partitioning. I consulted HP customer service, and they sent me a Windows disk and wants me to try restoring from that rather than from the Recovery provided on the hard drive. I haven’t done this yet, but is there an explanation? And actually, can’t I simply expand the C partition to the unallocated space to the right?
      My Computer


  2. mjf
    Posts : 5,969
    Windows 7x64 Home Premium SP1
       #2

    MS have the convention of referring to the partition that contain the boot files as "System" and the partition that contains the OS as "Boot". So you are fine.
    The unallocated is a little strange. Yes you can extend it to the right but you may need to use a Tool like Partition Wizard (highly regarded) because you are are working with the 4th primary partition.

    DO NOT attempt to create a 5th primary partition because you will end up with a dynamic disk (not good).

    Alternatively you could make the C partition an (extended) logical partition and make the unallocated a logical 5th partition. This is a way to have a user data partition which HP normally don't have.
    logical partitions or drives actually sit within a single extended partition and you don't have the dynamic disk problem.

    Add:
    If the "Windows" Disk HP sent you is a true Windows install and not just a Windows HP factory restore then that may be a better option again because you will get a clean install. In this case you will need the Product Key of the PC's COA sticker.
    Last edited by mjf; 08 May 2012 at 22:26. Reason: Addition
      My Computer


 

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