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    #1

    Toshiba restore partitions

    My uncle has a Toshiba A135 laptop and he wants to know if there's a recovery partition in there and how to get to it.
    The laptop has not been reformatted etc. since the day he got it so I presume there will be a recovery partition in there still?
    Seeing as his laptop runs Windows Vista Home premium on only 1GB of RAM, I presume it would be better if he just deletes the whole partition and installs Windows XP as that would enable better performance?
    Yes I've tried Vista home premium with 1GB of RAM and I ended up kicking my PC because it was so slow and it froze when I really needed to get some urgent work done (literally really really hard.... even tipped it over) in which dented the case, broke some solder joints and also ruined my HDD.
    Lesson learnt: Do not kick your PC when you hate Microsofts stupid engineering.... instead.... go install Linux and use it like the pros do.
    Oh and as a side note it will cost you a lot of money if you decide to abuse your computer like what I did.

    I know my Dell laptop has one but wen I installed a Vista upgrade it screwed that partition up. I ended up reinstalling Windows XP on that laptop. Windows Vista is total garbage and Microsoft should go and screw themselves for making such a crap OS that makes my life hell when it comes to driver or application installations.
    Anyway is there someway to access that partition??

    Thanks.
    Last edited by stevo1210; 06-01-2008, 08:37 AM.
    Don't find love, let love find you. That's why its called falling in love, because you don't force yourself to fall, you just fall. - Anonymous
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    #2
    Re: Toshiba restore partitions

    Disk size has nothing to do with available RAM for the operating system. Add more RAM if you want to run Vista. A bare minimum is 2gb. You can save a few hundred meg in a pinch, by turning off the Aero interface, and using Windows Classic interface. It makes Vista easier to navigate also.

    You can find recovery partitions with Partition Magic, GHOST, ERD Commander... many others I'm sure. I use these three in my service kit.

    If you have a copy of Ghost, you can image the recovery partition to a file. Then use Ghost Explorer to poke around in that file, and extract anything you want. On the Dell machines, there are some Interesting Things in the recovery partition.

    IMO, the recovery partition is OK for Joe User, but I don't use it. When I prep a machine, I save the disk image to a ghost image on DVD for "just in case". I then wipe the disk clean, and do an unattended custom install of WinXP. My CD kit allows use of the customer's serial number to keep it legit. This method installs Zero Bundled Crap (ZBC) on the customer's machine. No Google Toolbar or other shit.

    Saving the Restore partition has the added benefit with Toshiba, of having factory drivers. I find drivers for Toshiba very difficult to obtain.

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      #3
      Re: Toshiba restore partitions

      Your uncle has a dvd recovery disk? If not, it's almost sure there is an hidden partition on the drive: usually there is a cd-dvd basic burning tool designed to have at least a working copy of the partition in case hard disk goes nuts and you have to replace it, so make a copy and verify it by reinstalling Vista while retaining the hidden partition.
      If it works, you're covered: you can format the drive including deleting the hidden partition, install XP / 2000 / your favourite Linux distro and enjoy the computer ; if not, the recovery process is embedded in the bios and you can't get rid of the partition unless you want to lose the Vista license. So backup the partition as bgavin suggested before zeroing the drive: an open source utility, linux based, is Clonezilla but I'm unsure if supports Vista's bcd and partition style.
      2nd: bgavin is right, Vista may be slower than XP but the 3-minutes-boot-hell, the google-desktop-vs-vista-indexer-competition and the Norton-"slowdown"-Internet-Insecurity are related to preinstalled bloatware. A vanilla Vista disk usually deliver a better experience and you can strip it down with vLite if you like to; anyway 1 GB of ram is the bare minimum for Vista (good size for XP), 2 GB are better.
      3rd: for drivers install a diagnostic tool, detect the hardware and look for XP drivers before clearing the drive. Usually the base hardware is covered: chipset, videocard, sound and touchpad drivers are available most of times, while card readers, webcams, bluetooth and other niceties may be manifacturer related.

      Zandrax
      Last edited by zandrax; 06-03-2008, 06:13 PM.
      Have an happy life.

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        #4
        Re: Toshiba restore partitions

        My uncle told me that his laptop came with a bunch of recovery DVDs (e.g. Windows CDs).... I think there still is a partition on the HDD for the recovery process much like Dell laptops.... but the disks came anyway.


        Thanks.
        Don't find love, let love find you. That's why its called falling in love, because you don't force yourself to fall, you just fall. - Anonymous

        Comment

          #5
          Re: Toshiba restore partitions

          Originally posted by stevo1210
          My uncle told me that his laptop came with a bunch of recovery DVDs (e.g. Windows CDs).... I think there still is a partition on the HDD for the recovery process much like Dell laptops.... but the disks came anyway.
          True: most OEM use the hidden partition for image recovery assisted by bios; in you case check all recovery disk works, then wipe out the disk: better feel safe than sorry if you uncle will need Vista in future.

          Zandrax
          Have an happy life.

          Comment

            #6
            Re: Toshiba restore partitions

            My Dell laptop had two hidden partitions. One was a diagnostic partition, and the other a restore partition. The restore partition was accessable during the boot process. When I repartitioned the drive to add Linux, it made these partitions unavailable through the boot process.

            So, warning! It may be better to use a different hard drive. Remove the original and safely store it away. Any Vista drivers it has will be useless for WinXP anyway.

            I ended up wiping the drive clean and doing a fresh install of WinXP. Those hidden partitions weren't doing me any good if I couldn't access them.

            Comment

              #7
              Re: Toshiba restore partitions

              If you have access to Ghost, you save an image of the disk.

              I format the System partition, and leave it empty but undisturbed. This makes the image size pretty small... easy to get on a single DVD.

              I do a DISK image and save it away. When the customer loses a disk, he loses his diag partition. With Dell, there is machine specific info stored here... I install a new disk, restore the disk image to that disk, then restore the saved system partition. It is multiple steps, but it does work.

              Caveat: don't use Ghost to change partition sizes. I have very poor success with this. Restore the image using the same sizes as saved in the original. Use Partition Magic to change the partition sizes. Very reliable, much less grief in the long run.

              Comment

                #8
                Re: Toshiba restore partitions

                I"m working on a laptop with an interesting way of hiding the recovery partition.. It has HPA enabled, and the recovery partition is only accessible by powering up the laptop with F4 pushed down, which makes it boot from the HPA protected partition..

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