XP Media Center_Lopsided HD Partition Config (???)

[mark4man]

People...

A friend of mine purchased an HP PC last year...w/ Windows XP Media Center.
Lately he tells me he gets a message when he fires it up that says he's
running out of disc space. I took at look at it for him this evening...& he
has a 300 GB Hard Drive on board...but w/ only 20 GB partitioned as Local
(C); & the remaining 280 GB partitioned as RECOVERY (D.)

Why would the drive be configured this way...doesn't XP Media Center need
about 7 to 10 GB's of space itself?

Why is the super huge partition labeled as RECOVERY?

Is there a way I could go into 'Disk Management' for him & increase the size
of the boot partition (& at the same time reduce the size of the recovery
partition)?

Thanks,

mark4man

 

[Rock]

People...

A friend of mine purchased an HP PC last year...w/ Windows XP Media
Center.
Lately he tells me he gets a message when he fires it up that says he's
running out of disc space. I took at look at it for him this evening...&
he
has a 300 GB Hard Drive on board...but w/ only 20 GB partitioned as Local
(C); & the remaining 280 GB partitioned as RECOVERY (D.)

Why would the drive be configured this way...doesn't XP Media Center need
about 7 to 10 GB's of space itself?

Why is the super huge partition labeled as RECOVERY?

Is there a way I could go into 'Disk Management' for him & increase the
size
of the boot partition (& at the same time reduce the size of the recovery
partition)?

That is unusual. Normally an OEM recovery is hidden and no where near that
size. What is stored on that partition?

XP does not have the tools to non destructively change the size of the
partitions. 3rd party software is needed for that, such as Acronis Disk
Director Suite, Symantec's Partition Magic or Terabyte Unlimited's BootIt
NG. BootIt NG has a 30 day full featured free trial version which will do
what you want.

Note: Before doing any partition work make sure there is a full and
complete backup of important data.

 

[Rock]

People...

A friend of mine purchased an HP PC last year...w/ Windows XP Media
Center.
Lately he tells me he gets a message when he fires it up that says he's
running out of disc space. I took at look at it for him this evening...&
he
has a 300 GB Hard Drive on board...but w/ only 20 GB partitioned as Local
(C); & the remaining 280 GB partitioned as RECOVERY (D.)

Why would the drive be configured this way...doesn't XP Media Center need
about 7 to 10 GB's of space itself?

Why is the super huge partition labeled as RECOVERY?

Is there a way I could go into 'Disk Management' for him & increase the
size
of the boot partition (& at the same time reduce the size of the recovery
partition)?

I sent the last post too soon - meant to add this. Since the computer is
relatively new, you might also want to check with HP tech support for any
info they have on why it was configured this way. It certainly shouldn't
have been.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

People...

A friend of mine purchased an HP PC last year...w/ Windows XP Media Center.
Lately he tells me he gets a message when he fires it up that says he's
running out of disc space. I took at look at it for him this evening...& he
has a 300 GB Hard Drive on board...but w/ only 20 GB partitioned as Local
(C); & the remaining 280 GB partitioned as RECOVERY (D.)

Why would the drive be configured this way...doesn't XP Media Center need
about 7 to 10 GB's of space itself?

Why is the super huge partition labeled as RECOVERY?

Is there a way I could go into 'Disk Management' for him & increase the size
of the boot partition (& at the same time reduce the size of the recovery
partition)?

Thanks,

mark4man

Don't get hung up on the partition label "Recovery". It is really
a data partition even though your friend does not appear to be
using it as such. I recommend that you relabel it as "Data" to
avoid any further confusion.

20 GBytes is a good size for the system partition. Your friend
should now move his data files to drive D:, which will give him
oodles of free space on both volumes.

 

[Alan Bunting]

An HP, you say? I think that's the problem - HP seems to rewrite their
restore program every time they release a new model of system, and there's
often something it does wrong. My Vista laptop, when restored from DVD,
wipes all the data and then sets that as unallocated space, creating a new
partition with whatever was left as free space.

As for your problem - I dunno why it would be taking more space for itself.
Sounds like one of those things HP computers do that some of us still don't
understand. In any case, back up your data and try restoring from HP DVDs,
if you can get them as a warranty benefit; they're $20 otherwise. As far as
I'm concerned they're worth every penny.

Oh, and to Rock - HP computers don't hide recovery partitions. They stay
totally visible the entire time they exist. At least, both of mine have...

 

[Rock]

Ok thanks, I haven't worked with HP laptops so I wasn't sure. It's unknown
at this point, though, if this is an HP recovery partition.

 

[mark4man]

Rock, Pegasus & Alan...

Thanks very much !!!

If what Pegasus is saying is correct...that would be a spectacular!

I shot him an e-mail, showing him how to get into 'System Information'; &
asking him to send me back details (on Drive Descriptions, File Systems,
Size, Free Space & Volume Names.) When he does, I'll be back.

Thanks again,

mark4man

 

[Paul Randall]

Don't get hung up on the partition label "Recovery". It is really
a data partition even though your friend does not appear to be
using it as such. I recommend that you relabel it as "Data" to
avoid any further confusion.

20 GBytes is a good size for the system partition. Your friend
should now move his data files to drive D:, which will give him
oodles of free space on both volumes.

I agree that the "Recovery" partition just holds data, but many computers,
such as my new Compaq desktop with Vista preinstalled, have a special use
for that partition. On my computer, the first primary partition is about
150GB and labeled Compaq and the second primary partition is about 6 GB and
labeled Recovery. On bootup hitting F11 gets you to a WinPE-like state
running a recovery manager program that allows doing a number of things,
including returning the first primary partition to a state very close to its
out-of-the-box state, using data from the second primary partition. Messing
with the recovery partition may be a bad idea.

I tried doing the F11 recovery thing after having added a second hard drive.
That alone confused the F11 process so that it could not start the recovery
manager, although it did start something else that allowed opening a cmd.exe
window which allowed me to run CScript, Wordpad and MSPaint. It appeared to
be running on a virtual X: drive.

I agree with your saying that only the minimal stuff should be stored on C:.
It just seems like too much trial and error is involved with each program or
suite you install, to figure out when you should use that program's defaults
and when and how to use your own folder structure on the data drive.

Do you have some references to sites that show examples of how to do this
organization?

-Paul Randall

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I agree that the "Recovery" partition just holds data, but many computers,
such as my new Compaq desktop with Vista preinstalled, have a special use
for that partition. On my computer, the first primary partition is about
150GB and labeled Compaq and the second primary partition is about 6 GB and
labeled Recovery. On bootup hitting F11 gets you to a WinPE-like state
running a recovery manager program that allows doing a number of things,
including returning the first primary partition to a state very close to its
out-of-the-box state, using data from the second primary partition. Messing
with the recovery partition may be a bad idea.

I tried doing the F11 recovery thing after having added a second hard drive.
That alone confused the F11 process so that it could not start the recovery
manager, although it did start something else that allowed opening a cmd.exe
window which allowed me to run CScript, Wordpad and MSPaint. It appeared to
be running on a virtual X: drive.

I agree with your saying that only the minimal stuff should be stored on C:.
It just seems like too much trial and error is involved with each program or
suite you install, to figure out when you should use that program's defaults
and when and how to use your own folder structure on the data drive.

Do you have some references to sites that show examples of how to do this
organization?

-Paul Randall

Sorry, I don't. On the machines I maintain I usually do this:
- Change the properties of "My Documents" on the desktop to point
at D:\My Documents.
- Move the EMail data files (.PST for Outlook, .dbx for OE) do
D:\EMail.
- Modify the default storage location for other applications (sound
programs, picture editors, accounting programs etc) do D:\xxx.