Solved inquiry before partitioning drives

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jaypels

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good day! first time to post here.. I finally gave windows 8 a go from sticking to windows 7 machines mainly because the new laptops today come with windows 8 :p

my question is, I'm planning to repartition my drive to C, D & E (current setup is 372gb for c and 537gb for d).. as always, I'll be using easeus partition manager but before proceeding with the partition, I've read some articles on windows 8 and some say that the OS "details" reside on a "hidden partition" and that if I repartition it, it will mess up the genuine status when I will reformat the PC in the future.. I checked my HDD partition and there is around a 100gb missing so I'm guessing that's the "hidden partition"? can anyone provide insight to this?

ps. sorry if this has been posted before. I actually tried to do a search before posting but could not find one so I opted to post it.

thanks!
 

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You might attach a Disk Management picture for us. It is easier to see the properties of your system that way.

Did you get a new laptop, and does it have Windows 8 or 8.1, they are different OSes, technically.

If you use EaseUS, make sure and use the latest one and let us know if it messes up your Recovery partitions. In the past it has, but may have be repaired by now.
 

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Saltgrass said:
You might attach a Disk Management picture for us. It is easier to see the properties of your system that way.

Did you get a new laptop, and does it have Windows 8 or 8.1, they are different OSes, technically.

If you use EaseUS, make sure and use the latest one and let us know if it messes up your Recovery partitions. In the past it has, but may have be repaired by now.
Click to expand...


I forgot to mention it is a new laptop and an 8.1 machine.. I did not know 8 and 8.1 are different OSes.. attached is a snip of the disk management

thanks!
 

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FYI, in computer world we use base 2 so everything is multiple of 2 ie., 1, 2, 4, 8,16,32 etc...
From the screen shot I can see that you have a 1TB hard drive but it only show 931.9 GB. Here's more info on HD:
HDD's - the Advertized size vs the Actual size. - Windows 7 Help Forums
There's only a 128MB (not 100GB as stated) missing from the screen shot and cannot be seen from disk management. You need to use diskpart from the command prompt to see it. This missing 128MB is currently unallocated and reserved by MS.

From the screen, the 100MB partition contains the UEFI Boot Info (BCD), the 900MB is a recoverry partition and contains info to allow you to boot the system into a safe mode and also info to perform system recovery from the 20GB factory recovery partition as if you just bought the PC. As long as you don't mess with these hidden partitions then you should not have any problem. So it is OK to repartition the C: & D: Drive. However, when you perform the factory restore, it will reset everything to the way it is shown now.
 

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topgundcp said:
FYI, in computer world we use base 2 so everything is multiple of 2 ie., 1, 2, 4, 8,16,32 etc...
From the screen shot I can see that you have a 1TB hard drive but it only show 931.9 GB. Here's more info on HD:
HDD's - the Advertized size vs the Actual size. - Windows 7 Help Forums
There's only a 128MB (not 100GB as stated) missing from the screen shot and cannot be seen from disk management. You need to use diskpart from the command prompt to see it. This missing 128MB is currently unallocated and reserved by MS.

From the screen, the 100MB partition contains the UEFI Boot Info (BCD), the 900MB is a recoverry partition and contains info to allow you to boot the system into a safe mode and also info to perform system recovery from the 20GB factory recovery partition as if you just bought the PC. As long as you don't mess with these hidden partitions then you should not have any problem. So it is OK to repartition the C: & D: Drive. However, when you perform the factory restore, it will reset everything to the way it is shown now.
Click to expand...

I said around 100gb based on the devices and drives overview (my bad).. based on what you said, 900mb is already set to the system recovery.. my plan is, partition the drives to C, D & E, install my programs and create a system image.. if in the future anything goes wrong, I can go back to the point after I partitioned the drives and installed my programs without having problems with validating my laptop? windows 7 was easy for me, just type the code printed on the sticker.. windows 8 is new to me hence the questions..

thanks for the patience!
 

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based on what you said, 900mb is already set to the system recovery.
Click to expand...
No, 900mb partition only contains code to access and restore from the 20GB partition which is the Windows Backup image from the factory.

BTW, there's no E: drive from the disk management.
 

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    I7 4970K OC'ed @4.7 GHz
    Motherboard
    MSI-Z97
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    16 GB G-Skill Trident X @2400MHZ
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    256 GB M2 sm951, (2) 500GB 850EVO, 5TB, 2 TB Seagate
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topgundcp said:
based on what you said, 900mb is already set to the system recovery.
Click to expand...
No, 900mb partition only contains code to access and restore from the 20GB partition which is the Windows Backup image from the factory.

BTW, there's no E: drive from the disk management.
Click to expand...

I'm planning to repartition the drives. I like separating D (for my personal files) and E (for videos and other stuff). That's why I opened a thread because I'd like to clarify if I might mess something up when I'll repartition them
 

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As said above, if you don't mess with the Hidden partitions then you are OK.
So for example: your C is currently = 372.60 GB, Your D is = 537.80GB
Let's say you want to shrink C drive to 100GB (Which is plenty for Windows 8 OS) that will give you an extra 272.60 GB + 537.80GB from D drive which would be 272.60 GB + 537.80GB = 810.4 GB for storage and you can make 2 new partitions D & E and it is up to you how you want to allocate the space for D & E.

So the final layout is:
100mb Boot (Hidden)
900mb Windows Recovery Partition (hidden)
100gb C: Drive
400gb D: Drive =====> change size to what you want
410.4gb E: drive =====> the rest from 810.4 - the size of D
20GB Factory Recovery partition (hidden)
 

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If you have an OEM PC that came with Windows 8/8.1 preinstalled, you may not use the third-party partition software (for example, EaseUS Partition Master), because modifying the hard drive partition structure usually break the factory restore feature. But if you use Windows Disk Management to shrink the C: partition (see screenshot below), then Refresh and Reset should work.

EDIT: This program does not break the factory restore feature: Free Partition Manager - AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard

Shrink volume.png

You can verify the Windows RE information (before and after you have used the Windows Disk Management), in the elevated command prompt, type: reagentc /info

Windows 8 - reagentc info.png

Here is info about reagentc /info -> link
 
Last edited:

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thanks for the input! did I do it correctly?
 

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Good job. You might want to change the Labels of D & E Drives for easy identification.
 

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    I7 4970K OC'ed @4.7 GHz
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    NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450
    Sound Card
    X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional Series
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thank you topgundcp and genet! rep added to both of you!
 

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jaypels said:
did I do it correctly?
Click to expand...

Seems to be okay, because the recovery image logation is partition 7 (Windows RE information). Note that Microsoft Reserved (MSR) partition is not visible within Windows Disk Management, but it is listed with command line utility (diskpart).

All should be okay if you receive the following screen (see screenshots below) when you select: PC settings > Update and recovery > Recovery > click on the Get started button under the Refresh your PC without affecting your files section.

If you have an OEM PC that came with Windows 8 preinstalled and updated to Windows 8.1 (see screenshot below).

Note the following text: Go to the Windows Store to reinstall Windows 8.1 and your apps.



If you have an OEM PC that came with Windows 8.1 preinstalled (see screenshot below).

Refresh your PC 1.png

If you select the option Next, you receive the following screen (see screenshot below).

Refresh your PC 2.png
 

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    UEFI firmware (BIOS) embedded Windows 8 product key.
genet said:
Seems to be okay, because the recovery image logation is partition 7. Note that Microsoft Reserved (MSR) partition is not visible within Windows Disk Management, but it is listed with command line utility (diskpart).

All should be okay if you receive the following screen (see screenshots below) when you select: PC settings > Update and recovery > Recovery > click on the Get started button under the Refresh your PC without affecting your files section.

If you have an OEM PC that came with Windows 8 preinstalled and updated to Windows 8.1 (see screenshot below).

Note the following text: Go to the Windows Store to reinstall Windows 8.1 and your apps.



If you have an OEM PC that came with Windows 8.1 preinstalled (see screenshot below).

View attachment 49879

If you select the option Next, you receive the following screen (see screenshot below).

View attachment 49880
Click to expand...


i followed your advise and this is what it said. I do not have the cd's so I chose cancel
 

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Everything is alright. :)

If you have an OEM PC that came with Windows 8.1 preinstalled and when you refresh or reset Windows, it will reinstall Windows 8.1 from hard disk recovery partition (recovery image location).

But if you have created a Windows 8.1 recovery USB flash drive by selecting the option "Copy contents from the recovery partition to the recovery drive" and if you boot the computer from Windows 8.1 recovery USB flash drive and refresh or reset Windows, it will reinstall Windows 8.1 from Windows 8.1 recovery USB flash drive.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Lenovo G580
    CPU
    Intel Core i5-3230M
    Memory
    8 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel HD Graphics 4000
    Browser
    Microsoft Edge
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender, standard user account
    Other Info
    UEFI firmware (BIOS) embedded Windows 8 product key.
genet said:
Everything is alright. :)

If you have an OEM PC that came with Windows 8.1 preinstalled and when you refresh or reset Windows, it will reinstall Windows 8.1 from hard disk recovery partition (recovery image location).

But if you have created a Windows 8.1 recovery USB flash drive by selecting the option "Copy contents from the recovery partition to the recovery drive" and if you boot the computer from Windows 8.1 recovery USB flash drive and refresh or reset Windows, it will reinstall Windows 8.1 from Windows 8.1 recovery USB flash drive.
Click to expand...

after I'm done installing my programs, I'm planning to make a system image of it. is it better than the recovery usb flash drive?
 

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