A hidden partition on my drive....

[NoobWithMoobs]

I bought a PC with an advertised 80GB drive. I have 2 known partitions on the drive (C and D) But for some reason, I didn't have that 80GB, I only have just under 67GB. I know that Windows actually reads drives as GiBibytes and then mistakingly shows the GiB size as GB. (Or something like that). But that wouldn't subtract a whole 13GB from it.

But today I decided to do a little investigating on Winfows Disk Management and found something interesting...

There's a secret/ hidden partition, a THIRD one! It doesn't even have a label and it's 100% empty. So what the **** is it? It's 8GB in size. And as far as I know it's not being used for anything. So can I delete it? I need that extra space for my C: partition which only has just under 5GB free.

Also, I have Norton GoBack and used to have Norton Ghost. Could it belong to any of those programmes?

 

[patonb]

Well, it'll never have the advertised Gig amount, due to binary to decimal conversion, as you noted, so a 160Gig = bout 149Gig , As shown here Or do you mean a 80 in total? but either way, it should be 74.5, so less 8, equals the 67Gs.

The 8Gig could be the recovery partition or ghost, and are you sure its empty? What OS?

You might want to look into ways to minimize the temp files, IE has a huge default temp files.

 

[NoobWithMoobs]

I have Windows XP SP3. Oh, and it's the 32bit version!
I uninstalled Ghost a whileback, so would the space it reserved have stayed on for almsot a whole year?! And Windows Disk Management claims it's empty, but I can't even access this partition, it's there, but unaccessable. And my IE is set to delete all temp files each time I close it, although I might run CCleaner now to see if there's anything it's keeping.

 

[MundoDragon]

What brand/model PC is it? Keep in mind that most major computer manufacturers have started to create recovery partitions on the hard drive instead of supplying a hard copy of the software. I would scour your documentation and see if you can find anything on this. Another thing to do would be to search any folders that the manufacturer might have installed in your copy of windows and look for a tool to burn a copy of that recovery software ASAP, if it is, in fact, a recovery partition. If you find out that it is, once you burn a copy, it will be safe to simply delete the recovery partition. I would recommend testing the CD before you delete the partition though, just in case you burnt a coaster. Hope this helps solve your problem.

EDIT: I say 'ASAP' above because if, by any chance, something should happen to your hard drive before you have burned the recovery disk, then you will have no operating system to install when you do replace it without shelling out about 100 bucks for a retail version. (Then again, if you are anything like me, you would rather have a retail version then that bundled crap the major manufacturers give you )

 

[NoobWithMoobs]

It's a Packard Bell iMedia 753. And it's three years old (it had it's 3rd birthday on 16th June this year. Yes that's right, I'm sad enough to remember the date I bought it ).

BUT I did some searching. I looked through my folders and couldn't find a recovery tool or anything similar; all I found was a load of Packard Bell help crap and some bundled softwares! However... I found a PB Master DVD creator in the control panel!

The programme says "This program will create a Master DVD from the recovery data stored on the hard drive."

My guess is that this hidden partition of mine is the recovery data they talk about.

UPDATE!

Just done a bit of sleuthing of the PB help files. I found this:

"Your computer uses a hidden partition on the hard disk drive to store recovery data that can be used to restore your computer if a problem occurs.
This partition uses some of the hard disk drive (typically 5 to 8GB), which is not included in the summary information on the My Computer window. The data in this “hidden” partition can be transferred to a DVD or CDs (please check the Master DVD Creator Section of the Quick Start and Troubleshooting Guide) and can then be used as additional storage space. "

Just like you both said! Thanks for the help. I'm gonna start on the Master DVD straight away and then open up that space! Thanks

 

[veg1992]

I was guessing that before I just saw your reply..

HP, Dell, Compaq and all the other lousy pre-builders, tend to do that for recovery (it should be in Windows too)