Windows 7 HDD Partition ?

[johnny quid]

Hi folk,
Bought an Acer 6530G in '08, it came with Vista Pre-installed on C:\ and D:\ was for backup/data etc...
However i now have W7 Utl on C and W8CP on D and all is well..

But i would like to know: If the hidden partition named PQ_SERVICE only gets used with a set of Recovery DVDs i made with Acer Recovery Manager of Vista when it was virgin!
And if i delete this partition i will no longer be able to use the virgin Vista DVDs..?

As i don't see any other use for it.



Regards J.Quid

 

[Pauli]

It depends... Are your Vista DVDs marked "Acer only"? If they are, they may not want to work with other brands. The PQ_SERVICE partition is a recovery partition, and works only with Vista. Since you don't have Vista anymore, there shouldn't be any problems with deleting or re-partitioning. Other than we never really know what Windows has written... If Windows 7 and 8 have written something in that partition, well, Heaven only knows.

As a man who recently lost nearly 200Gb, years of work included, due to ...eh... complications, I would suggest you leave that partition alone. Unless you have a "must need" for the space - it's probably 3Gb or something? Don't fix that which isn't broken,
might be a good rule here.

Cheers.

 

[patcooke]

The hidden partition contains an installable copy of your operating system and drivers and may be booted into to recover your laptop completely to factory settings which will result in complete loss of any user data files and settings. You would need it in the case of any serious problem which required you to get your system wiped. It would also be needed in the case of a complete ard drive failure - the problem then is that it is stored on the hard drive which has failed. It is for this reason that yo are provided with a utility to burn the recovery image to a dvd which you can then use to set up a brand new hard drive. Having burned te dvd you could remove the hidden partition and use the freed up space as I have done but I would first try booting from your recovery dvd (but don't run the recovery of course!) to make sure it is going to work in the event you need it. I would also make a second copy of the recovery dvd and keep it in a separate place from the first one - I'm a great believer in Sod's law!

 

[whs]

This recovery partition is now useless. By installing W7 into the original Vista partition you lost the original bootmgr and the BCD to load from the recovery partition. You might as well use the space for something else.

 

[cliffordcooley]

This recovery partition is now useless. By installing W7 into the original Vista partition you lost the original bootmgr and the BCD to load from the recovery partition. You might as well use the space for something else.

This is not the case with the recovery partitions I have had experience with.

Sure you lose the option to boot the partition while the PC is loading but marking the recovery partition active has always loaded the recovery partition for me. If I remember correctly when the recovery partition has to create the OS partition the MBR is re-written (I could be mistaken though).

 

[patcooke]

This is not the case with the recovery partitions I have had experience with.

Sure you lose the option to boot the partition while the PC is loading but marking the recovery partition active has always loaded the recovery partition for me. If I remember correctly when the recovery partition has to create the OS partition the MBR is re-written (I could be mistaken though).

True - the recovery partition may still be accessed in this way but in any event make sure you have at least two copies of the recovery dvd before reassigning the disk space.

 

[whs]

Your scheme would work on e.g. a Dell system where the bootmgr is very often placed on the Recovery Partition. But on a system where the bootmgr is located on the C partition, I fail to see how you can boot once that partition is wiped out - even if you activate the Recovery Partition.

 

[cliffordcooley]

Your scheme would work on e.g. a Dell system where the bootmgr is very often placed on the Recovery Partition.

Holds true for HP's and eMachines as well. I did leave the door open for machines that are configured differently.

Can you verify the facts with Acer PC's, I believe that is the question in this case? The only reason I even spoke up was because of the statement about the recovery partition (leaving the door open to insinuation of any system) was rendered useless the moment the MBR was erased.

 

[Pauli]

The information in PQ_SERVICE is apt, if it has a true goal - and since we don't really know what has happened, we cannot determine whether it's good for anything or not. Can we?

I still suggest to leave it alone. May come a day you find it usable? What's a few gigabytes... in these days? Take the secure before the insecure.