Guide: How to Delete Hidden Recovery Partition on Vista

[utangmi]

I tried these steps to delete the hidden partition but it keeps giving me an error stating "Please make sure the selected partition is valid to delete". What am I missing?

[ncomeau2010]

Call me stupid if you want because I'm not THAT computer savy.... but what does the deleting of this partition do or help?

[eyecon82]

Call me stupid if you want because I'm not THAT computer savy.... but what does the deleting of this partition do or help?

basically it is wasting your HD space by having an extra partition...so if you are in need of more HD space..this is the only way it will really help

this is also a help if you don't mind doing "clean Installs" from now on because the factory saved copy of the OS will be deleted as well

[640m]

Tried Diskpart, but the partition is still there. Also, the T61 does not have the option in the BIOS(Security->IBM PreDesktop Area) to disable it.

[640m]

Tried Diskpart, but the partition is still there. Also, the T61 does not have the option in the BIOS(Security->IBM PreDesktop Area) to disable it.

Let me rephrase that....

Diskpart.exe cleared the partition, but I still don't have access to the extra space. I'm trying to do a clean install. I'm assuming I go ahead and do that and the space will be available after the clean install?

Thanks,
640m

[FlyingSoLow]

Let me rephrase that....

Diskpart.exe cleared the partition, but I still don't have access to the extra space. I'm trying to do a clean install. I'm assuming I go ahead and do that and the space will be available after the clean install?

Thanks,
640m

The Diskpart removes the partition and turns it into unallocated space. To be able to reallocate it you need to do a clean install after you do the diskpart partition delete. There are instructions somewhere in step #4 of Stallen's Clean Install guide.

PS. There are supposedly 3rd party programs that can be used to reallocate this unallocated space, but if you're doing a clean install anyways then there's no reason to use any of these programs.

[640m]

The Diskpart removes the partition and turns it into unallocated space. To be able to reallocate it you need to do a clean install after you do the diskpart partition delete. There are instructions somewhere in step #4 of Stallen's Clean Install guide.

PS. There are supposedly 3rd party programs that can be used to reallocate this unallocated space, but if you're doing a clean install anyways then there's no reason to use any of these programs.

Yeah, that's what I thought, so I began the clean install process last night using Stallen's guide after using Diskpart. However, when I get to step 3.12 of the guide where I delete and reformat the drive, I only see one area now of 93GB. My drive is 100GB. I'm assuming I'll have to reallocate the extra space when I'm done with the clean install. Also, I should point out that the Anytime DVD I was using is corrupt. In step 3.13 the process stopped - no matter how many times I tried. So, long story short is I'll get some DVDs and burn the files (downloaded already) to make my own disk and see what happens. Other than that, an awesome straightforward guide.

Thanks to the OP!!!

[FlyingSoLow]

Yeah, that's what I thought, so I began the clean install process last night using Stallen's guide after using Diskpart. However, when I get to step 3.12 of the guide where I delete and reformat the drive, I only see one area now of 93GB. My drive is 100GB. I'm assuming I'll have to reallocate the extra space when I'm done with the clean install. Also, I should point out that the Anytime DVD I was using is corrupt. In step 3.13 the process stopped - no matter how many times I tried. So, long story short is I'll get some DVDs and burn the files (downloaded already) to make my own disk and see what happens. Other than that, an awesome straightforward guide.

Thanks to the OP!!!

It worked properly. Unfortunately it's showing 93 GB because of an industry standard problem, disk overhead. Here's a link that discusses it, Disk Overhead. Basically you have a 100,027,854,848 byte capacity HD, but when it comes down to it you have 93.1 x 2^30 bytes or 93.1 GB of space. Yes it sucks, but it's how it is. Hopefully your next attempt goes well.

[commodore73]

Since Dell didn't know, I just want to add that this process appears to have worked to delete the hidden Dell MediaDirect partition from an XPS machine running Vista, in the hopes that this will help someone find these steps when they need them. But be aware that MediaDirect contains the DVD codec, so if you delete it, apparently you need to find another DVD player software.

Delete Dell MediaDirect partition
Remove Dell MediaDirect partition
Delete Dell MediaDirect
Remove Dell MediaDirect
Delete Dell Media Direct
Remove Dell Media Direct
Dell MediaDirect totally sucks

[gogo2390]

my harddrive is a 160gb...it says i have 62.3 of 142 gb free...how much will i get back if i chose to delete this partition?