Ask the Guru's: Removal of Recovery Partition - Vista to Windows 7 upgrade?

[Toasty]

I have a Toshiba Satellite L355-S7831 laptop that came in with major system problems and would not repair itself. Turned out the hard drive, a Hitachi 5K320-250, was failing and after several runs (days!) of HDD Regenerator, it finally settled down.

With Vista (Home Premium) being the pig it is, I went looking and found a Toshiba Windows 7 Ultimate .iso, with SLIC 2.1, and installed it. The system ran much better, but there was still the failing disk to worry about.

Located a comparable, new, WD Black WD2500BEKT drive and used Acronis True Image Home to clone the drive. Used the files method not the sector-by-sector approach as I didn't want to transfer pseudo bad sectors to the new disk.

Worked perfectly and several full disk checks have shown no errors. The system is also noticeably faster as the original HD was 5400 rpm and the new one is 7200 rpm.

Now, the questions are:

What purpose does the "TOSHIBA RECOVERY VOLUME" that is in a 1.5 GB partition at the beginning of the disk serve?

Is it unneeded as the system is now Windows 7 not Vista?

CAN it safely be removed (by repartitioning) without crashing the present W7 install?

SHOULD it be removed in case there is an error and W7 tries to use it thinking it's VHP?

Your thoughts and recommendations, please.

Toast

[Perineum]

Re: Ask the Guru's: Removal of Recovery Partition - Vista to Windows 7 upgrade?

That partition is bootable by hitting a qualifier key in the BIOS during bootup.

It will boot up into a customized OS and will wipe and reinstall the laptop back to it's factory condition, including all the original crapware and trialware.

As you have now made the smart move to Windows 7 that partition is not needed anymore.

Typically I just format the existing HD and do a fresh install of Windows 7. In your case I would just remove the recovery partition.

Be aware that Windows 7 makes 2 partitions by default. First one is a 100meg partition and the second is the remainder of the drive. Touching either one of those partitions will result in a non-boot scenario.

[Toasty]

Re: Ask the Guru's: Removal of Recovery Partition - Vista to Windows 7 upgrade?

Thank you for that information.

>>Be aware that Windows 7 makes 2 partitions by default. First one is a 100meg partition and the second is the remainder of the drive. Touching either one of those partitions will result in a non-boot scenario.<<

That's news to me...

I have installed W7 Ult in other systems and that never came up...? I see what you are saying from the info on the web (Googled it) about it and just looked at 2 of my W7 systems (via Disk Management) and there is no 100MB partition.

Toast

[ratdude747]

Re: Ask the Guru's: Removal of Recovery Partition - Vista to Windows 7 upgrade?

I would use a bootable gparted disc to delete the unneeded partition and expand the existing one to take up the free space.

[Toasty]

Re: Ask the Guru's: Removal of Recovery Partition - Vista to Windows 7 upgrade?

Thank you.

I have Easeus disk partitioning software installed.

Will doing as you suggest, create a problem at the front of the disk for booting?

The recovery partition is moot since I have the W7 DVD, correct?
Any problems would be handled by inserting same for "Repair Options", yes?

Toast

[yyonline]

Re: Ask the Guru's: Removal of Recovery Partition - Vista to Windows 7 upgrade?

Thank you for that information.

>>Be aware that Windows 7 makes 2 partitions by default. First one is a 100meg partition and the second is the remainder of the drive. Touching either one of those partitions will result in a non-boot scenario.<<

That's news to me...

I have installed W7 Ult in other systems and that never came up...? I see what you are saying from the info on the web (Googled it) about it and just looked at 2 of my W7 systems (via Disk Management) and there is no 100MB partition.

Toast

If you install onto an empty hard drive, Windows 7 setup creates the special diagnostic/boot repair partition. If you install onto an already partitioned hard drive, Windows 7 setup does not create the extra partition. The special partition is basically the same as creating a system repair disc once Windows is installed.

Unless you want to go back to the factory OS, the recovery partition is useless. If you might want to go back to the factory OS for whatever reason, make an image of the drive first so you can put it back later.

[Toasty]

Re: Ask the Guru's: Removal of Recovery Partition - Vista to Windows 7 upgrade?

Nope. Have no intention of reverting this system to Vista.

I'll do an image of the system onto a external drive, then delete that partition.

Thank you!

Toast

[Perineum]

Re: Ask the Guru's: Removal of Recovery Partition - Vista to Windows 7 upgrade?

If you install onto an empty hard drive, Windows 7 setup creates the special diagnostic/boot repair partition. If you install onto an already partitioned hard drive, Windows 7 setup does not create the extra partition.

Ahh, never noticed that upgrades / installing to partitioned drives did not make the 2 default partitions. Mind you, I build a lot more new machines than I do upgrades to Win 7.....

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Ask the Guru's: Removal of Recovery Partition - Vista to Windows 7 upgrade?

Is it unneeded as the system is now Windows 7 not Vista?

CAN it safely be removed (by repartitioning) without crashing the present W7 install?

SHOULD it be removed in case there is an error and W7 tries to use it thinking it's VHP?

Yes, go ahead and wipe it! It's better to wipe the HDD with MHDD or DBAN!

[Toasty]

Re: Ask the Guru's: Removal of Recovery Partition - Vista to Windows 7 upgrade?

Partition removal complete. No errors. Success!

Thanks to all!

Toast