Solved Change drive letter of RECOVERY partition?

[kathy025]

Using MiniTool PartWiz, I unhid the RECOVERY (F: ) partition. Is it safe to change the drive letter to (E: )? Will it still work?

 

[SIW2]

Yes. As long as you don't change the starting sector of the recov partition. A letter is just an alias. It won't damage anything.

 

[kathy025]

Hi SIW2,

I have found these articles:
Changing the Drive letter of the Recovery Partition - HP Support Forum - 781263
Changing the Drive letter of the Recovery Partition - HP Support Forum - 781263
http://www.sevenforums.com/general-...etter-than-original-d-recovery-partition.html

Which advise changing the drive letter on the Recovery partition will cause it to no longer work (because the Recovery process will look for files in that specific partition).

They happen to be all HP's though. What do you guys think? Is this applicable for every brand?

 

[Slartybart]

I can only speak with certainty about HP.

Changing the drive letter on teh Recovery part has no ill affects.

There is nothing else you have to do
- no registry hacks,
- no boot menu changes,
- no bios change
- just change the letter (I do suggest a system restart - probably not necessary).

SIW2 knows his stuff, your Asus box will be fine as well.
If you haven't made Asus Recovery media (install disc) you can easily test the change.
After your change the drive letter and restart, try making your Asus recovery media.
Mfgrs only allow one copy to be made, so that might be greayed out if you already made a disc.

But I agree with SIW2 - don't worry about changing the drive letter.

Other members might have more.

 

[kathy025]

Hi Bill,

Thanks! I have changed the RECOVERY partition to (E: ). I have noted the original partition letter though, should it come into any need in the future. I have backed up the entire partition as well. Though I have created my own ISO image copy of the driver disc, I found a Driver64.wim image as well inside the RECOVERY partition. That was nice.

Mfgrs only allow one copy to be made, so that might be greayed out if you already made a disc.

Since I have the physical driver disc and the OEM disc, I haven't created the recovery discs. I like to control what bundleware gets installed to my machine.

But, I didn't know there was a limitation to the number of times the user can create recovery discs. Perhaps it's to prevent counterfeiting? Thanks for the new knowledge.

 

[Slartybart]

Hi Kathy,

Give a thank you to SIW2 as well - he answered your question. I only amplified it and provided some side info

Soemthing I do on my machine is move certain drives way down the list of letters.
So for instance my OD is U, and my recovery part (when I had one) was Z.

I played around with the Recovery part on a few machines, made a backup copy too before removing it. I'm not sure what good it does though.

I've become reliant on the Clean Reinstall tutorials here on SF for any installs. I do have the HP discs, but don't want to have to clean up after an install. I can live without an Fkey getting to the recovery part at install time.

As you mentioned - control that bloatware!

Yes, probably anti-piracy reasone for a one copy only.

But WOW, an OEM still provides Installation discs? I really like Asus, I own an Asus router - Asus will probably be my next PC when this one breaks (or I break it)

You're welcome,

Bill

 

[bigmck]

Hi Kathy -- I have a different way still of doing mine. I don't plan to use the Recovery Partiion, instead I have made Macrium Copies of my OS and Doc partitions and use that as my backup. If I need to restore, I use the Macrium insted of the Recovery Partition. I don't have to worry about the Bloatware either.

 

[kathy025]

Thanks SIW2!

I played around with the Recovery part on a few machines, made a backup copy too before removing it. I'm not sure what good it does though.

I've become reliant on the Clean Reinstall tutorials here on SF for any installs. I do have the HP discs, but don't want to have to clean up after an install. I can live without an Fkey getting to the recovery part at install time.

Yes, I'm actually thinking of getting rid of the recovery partition (it still eats 20GB), since I've always preferred to handle my own OS installations. I guess I will just create the CDs for whatever purpose they may serve.

But WOW, an OEM still provides Installation discs?

Yes they do. :3

The blue discs are for my old X80LE (2008, working condition). There are separate discs for x86 drivers, x64 drivers, and bundleware. The black one is for my current N45SF. I have imaged all of them too. The driver discs allows you to untick bundleware during installation. I really hope ASUS keeps this nice old tradition.

@bigmck:
Imaging HDD is actually next in my to-learn list. I have external HDDs where I would mirror my files, old-school copy-paste, before I proceed with clean install via discs. I think it would be a convenient thing to learn. I have just learned moving/resizing partitions.