repartition n keeping the recovery files

angko · 11 Jan 2010

i bought a new 2.13GB penrin toshiba satelite L505-10P laptop. it has a
500GB harddisk with 3 partitions in it, the 1st is a the 400mb recovery
partition, the 2nd a 232gb NTFS with a 64bit french win7 home premium in
it, the 3rd is a 232GB NTFS contains recovery files: msdia80.dll,
R11461FR.tag N a directory: HDDRecovery contains several subdirectories.
i want to repartition the HD but i'm new to toshiba and to win7 n 64bit
systems. i'm planning to do:

1. copy the recovery files in the 3rd partition to a removable media
2. shrink the 1st partition to the minimum possible. should i? how many
MB?
3. shrink the 2nd/win7 partition to maybe 100GB (any advise?)
4. del the 3rd partition
5. make an extended partition in the place of the 3rd
6. make some logical partitions in it, with specifics drives for:
a. general data
b. music n multimedia (actually i have nearly 70GB of music, plus
some videos/records)
c. backup where i'm gonna put the recovery files from the former 3rd
partition
d. a linux swap (how big? i have 4GB of RAM)
7. make the 4th primary partition for 1 or 2 distro: ubuntu or kuliax
(an indonesian debian derivee suited for IT learning n programming)

my questions are:
1. what i know is that a HD can only contain 4 primary partitions.
please CMIIW
2. if i proceed like that, will the recovery process be always
fonctional? will the recovery image not be alterated? can i move
freely the contains of the former 3rd partitons into another one? i'd
like to keep them cos they're to keep the genuine windows privileges
in case of reinstallation.
3. i've always use gparted CD for partitioning, will it be good to
manipulate the 64bit win7 created partition?
4. will the GRUB not alterate the recovery process? will the recovery
still be accessible by pressing F8 while booting?
5. what's the best way to proceed? how should i repartition my 500GB HD?
6. any further info n advises please.

thank you very much

Saltgrass · 11 Jan 2010

You ask many questions, but I will try to answer some.

Only 4 primary partitions on a MBR formatted drive.

400 MB isn't much, so you may not want to shrink it, plus you might not be able to get that space back anyway.

100 GB for a Win 7 partition should be fine, but only you would know for sure.

I do not know if Linux will load in a logical partition, you might check first.

Since I do not use a Toshiba, I cannot guarantee the recovery system will work if you do what you seem to want to try.

Your warranty might be affected if you change all these things.

gregrocker · 11 Jan 2010

You can make your own recovery partition to store a Win7 Backup Image which will reimage the HD using the DVD in 15 minutes. Save a copy externally in case of HD failure.

If you want to be able to recover to factory condition (with bloatware) then make the recovery disks (the other function of the partition) so you are free to delete it and recover the space.

Personally I would rather have a clean reinstalled or Win7 stripped of bloatware, set up as I like and then an image stored in my own recovery partition or externally.

But as suggested, you may need to have the original HD configuration to service Hardware warranty. Toshiba told me last year that to clean reinstall Vista would void the tech support warranty. I made the disks so I could put it back to factory condition if need be.

Night Hawk · 12 Jan 2010

Hello angko Welcome to the Se7en Forums!

Since you are already familiar with GParted the hardest task will be moving the 7 primary to the front of the drive once yes once any other larger then 100mb partition is removed. See the manufacturer's support site however first for creating a set of recovery disks before removal of the factory partition first would be the practical advise to start with.

Most factory recovery partitions are only some 7-10gb in size unless bloated with prepackaged softwares.

Once you have the 7 primary moved forward you can then go about resizing any other partitions or simply nuke the rest off of the drive in order to create the new extended volumes for Linux to go on. A distro can be installed to either a primary or extended while the swap sees an extended.

With a small distro like ubuntu or Puppy even kuliax the swap is optional while not even needed. Ubuntu 9.10 uses only about 343mb of ram with a browser open. A swap file would be adequate while a swap partition could be shared by more then one distro.

The ideal circumstance of starting off fresh on a drive without any partitions of course would be with a custom made not premade laptop or desktop without worry of voiding any warranty being this new. Most warrenties however are dealing more with hardware problems not how you elect to repartition or re OS the drive itself.

The partitioning scheme has to be decided on first while GParted can be used live for moving the 7 primary forward. The thing to avoid is seeing Grub trash the 7 mbr however by using manual partitioning options with the ubuntu installer there. You want the root to be the mount point and use a program like EasyBCD to add Linux into the 7 boot loader.

angko · 24 Jan 2010

thank you all for responding. i've done some digs n found that there is a good partition tool out there called partition wizard that can handle 64 bit win7 partition. i used it, only to change the size of the third partition n then make a fourth extended partition, but when i restarted the laptop, windows 7 just couldn't boot no more, neither even the F8 recovery option could find the recovery data (which are still in the 3rd partition which has only been resized). fortunately i've made 2 recovery CDs before like your advices here. i think this is not the normal situation i should find using any of linux partition tool. maybe if i'd used gparted it was just fine, but i decided not to mess again for a while coz it's taken me half a day to do the system recovery. due to works i'd to reinstall the system rapidly n after that haven't decided yet of when i'll try to repartition the HD again. maybe after the tasks are a done a little bit by the end of this month i'll post some more questions as i by that time will retry to partition again. thank you all a lot for having responded.

gregrocker · 24 Jan 2010

When you resized the partitions you either damaged or deleted the MBR, causing Win7 to become unbootable.

This is easily fixed by booting the Win7 DVD Repair console (or the Repair CD) to run Startup Repair up to 3 separate times with reboots as it will attempt to repair and then rewrite the MBR.

If you will post back a screenshot of your full Disk Management drive map, and tell us exactly what you would like to do, we can give you the steps using free Partition Wizard bootable CD.

Use the Snipping Tool in Start Menu, attach file using paper clip in Reply Box.

Night Hawk · 24 Jan 2010

The partition for the 64bit Windows is the same used for the 32bit. The Kernel in the OS is what is different there. As for partitioning you may have done something unintended as gregrocker was leading to there.

When partitioning or reformatting with GParted the one thing to remember there is that the default file system is set for Ext 2 not NTFS! It's too easy to make an ut oh! if you shoudl forget to bring down the list of choices and scroll down to the "ntfs" option.

Now for the OS primary and if you want to see the 100mb sector at the beginning of C you would create that partition using the drive tools on the 7 dvd itself. GParted or another tool can fill in the rest. Why?

If you want the startup repair and other tools seen as a boot option the tools are stored in the first 100mb section. With GParted, Partition Wizard, Paragon Partition Manager, and others that won't be seen. Odd isn't it?! You'll still see the option but no tools when clicked for some(MS?) reason!