Vista question: unnamed partition on main HD

[Matthew]

Running Vista Home Premium: I was "exploring" and ran the Computer
Management tool. What I am questioning is that my main HD appeared as my
(C drive as well as a separate unnamed partition of 10GB of unallocated
space. What is this unused space for?
Matthew

 

[~Alex~.:MVP Windows Shell/User:.]

I am guessing this is a pre-built machine from HP, Leveno or some other
manufacturer. This would be the Recovery Partition that you hear so much
about. Some manufacturers hide it. This is what you get in replacement of
a Vista DVD from them. On their site they should give you instructions on
how to use this partition.

 

[Blake Mengotto]

If it's a laptop, then it could be your recovery partition.

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi Matthew,

Likely a proprietary recovery partition, very common with preinstalled
systems that come without disks. They place the recovery image on a small
section of hard drive that can be accessed at startup by hitting the
appropriate function key (check your system documentation).

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[Patrick Keenan]

Running Vista Home Premium: I was "exploring" and ran the Computer
Management tool. What I am questioning is that my main HD appeared as my
(C drive as well as a separate unnamed partition of 10GB of unallocated
space. What is this unused space for?
Matthew

It depends on the system. In some it's the recovery partition, in some it's
a BIOS partition, and in some it's unallocated space left over by NTFS. At
10gb, I would expect it to be a recovery partition.

Power down to fully OFF, then watch the screen carefully as the system
restarts - if you see a message on the screen to the effect of "press a
specific key to start system recovery", the system has a recovery partition
and that's where it is.

If that is the case, that raises another issue, which is what you will do
when your system's drive fails. You will need to have recovery discs of
some type, or you will have to buy a new OS license to get the discs. If
you have discs, you're set. If you don't, you should contact the vendor
and see if you can purchase recovery discs. Don't wait for this - as
models change, the discs will be discontinued.

HTH
-pk

 

[David]

There should be a way for the OP to create a recovery disk on his computer,
rather than asking the manufacturer to send him one. He definitely should
do it before he has that crash that requires its use. Seems like some of
the posters to this ng have had problems that could have been fixed had they
done this.

 

[Kerry Brown]

Running Vista Home Premium: I was "exploring" and ran the Computer
Management tool. What I am questioning is that my main HD appeared as my
(C drive as well as a separate unnamed partition of 10GB of unallocated
space. What is this unused space for?
Matthew

Are you sure that's not MB instead of GB. When Vista (and XP) create a
partition that uses the whole drive they leave about 8 MB of unallocated
space.

 

[Patrick Keenan]

There should be a way for the OP to create a recovery disk on his
computer, rather than asking the manufacturer to send him one.

I agree completely. However, that doesn't appear to always be the case,
and it's the user who suffers. This shouldn't be an option.

Also, you don't just "ask" the manufacturer to send a restore disc; it often
isn't free, though the actual cost to the OEM is probably rather less than a
dollar.

In addition, it may really be a restore disc, not a Vista or XP install
disc that could perhaps be slipstreamed or have tools you can use at boot
time...

He definitely should do it before he has that crash that requires its use.

No argument from me on that.

The "restore partition" is, to my view, a terminally flawed concept that
ultimately victimizes the consumer, all to save probably less than a dollar.

Seems like some of the posters to this ng have had problems that could
have been fixed had they done this.

Restore/recovery discs of any origin (shipped by OEM or made by the end
user) are often not at all the same as original, bootable install discs, and
may well lack some tools that could save the effort of a destructive
reinstall or restore.

HTH
-pk