RECOVERY PARTITION TOO LARGE?

[fangorn]

Hi,
My laptop is a VGN-A397XP with an Hitachi Travelstar 80GB 2.5" SATA Hard Drive-HTS541080G9SA00, 5400 RPM, 8MB Cache.
By using the recovery tool, the C: partition has a size of 30 GB and the 😧 partition has a size of 30GB. So the remaining would be 20 GB. No? But when I've created the recovery DVD, I've only used one DVD with about 3GB. 17GB wasted in the recovery partition? What's the problem? I'm curious...

[William]

According to Vaio Link the hidden partion is 7.5Gb.

I have yet to own a Vaio with a hidden recovery partition so I was wondering if it is possible you now have TWO hidden partitions of 7.5Gb

But this still leaves about 2Gb missing after allowing for formatting?

[fangorn]

HI there,
I've heard that the recovery partition has a size of about 7GB (you tell me 7.5 GB). But why a second hidden partition? Is there a utility to check the partition size? Fdisk perhaps but it's dangerous! Exactly C: has a size of 27.9GB and 😧 has a size of 39.5GB. So plus 7.5 GB, the lack is about 5.1GB... It's a mystery...

[William]

HI there,
I've heard that the recovery partition has a size of about 7GB (you tell me 7.5 GB). But why a second hidden partition? Is there a utility to check the partition size? Fdisk perhaps but it's dangerous! Exactly C: has a size of 27.9GB and 😧 has a size of 39.5GB. So plus 7.5 GB, the lack is about 5.1GB... It's a mystery...

In my ignorance I don't know if a recovery creates a hidden partition during recovery, as I have never had to deal with hidden recovery partitions, but it probably it doesn't cos once its deleted its gone!

Your total have now improved with 39,5GB on the D.

27.9+39.5+7.5+3(for formatting) = 77.9.

So you are missing about 2.1GB

There may be a feasible explanation forthcoming from other members but you have not mentioned the circumstances surrounding your need to recover.

Maybe you have a lot of lost clusters.

Have you tried chkdsk /f

[fangorn]

Hi,
So to answer your question, I need to recover after send back my laptop to Sony (dead motherboard, dead mouse RF receiver and dead optical drive)!!! Just an exercise of style... So I recover from original factory configuration (re-creation of partition, re-formatting, and so on). It took about one hour to complete. So your computation is the same as mine, except for the 3GB (formatting). What are the 3BG????
Regards

[William]

Right I think the mystery is solved. My initial guesstimate of losing 3GB during fromatting was rather optimistic and is more like 5.6 GB for an 80Gb HDD (My 40Gb has a formatted capacity of 37.2GB

Formatting always "loses" space as HDD manufacturers always quote unformatted size.

SEE HERE

So 27.9+39.5+7.5+5.1 (for formatting)= 80GB

It would seem you can stop worrying as the total figure seems realistic for the HDD fitted. Sorry the answer took longer than it should of I should have plugged in my 40GB HDD sooner.

[Thalamus.]

HI there,
I've heard that the recovery partition has a size of about 7GB (you tell me 7.5 GB). But why a second hidden partition? Is there a utility to check the partition size? Fdisk perhaps but it's dangerous! Exactly C: has a size of 27.9GB and 😧 has a size of 39.5GB. So plus 7.5 GB, the lack is about 5.1GB... It's a mystery...

As far as I was aware when making the Recovery Media set you need either 2 DVD +/- R discs or 9 CD R discs.

You can check the size of your drives parttions hidden or othewise, click start > Control panel > Administrative tools > Computer management > Storage > Disc management.

[fangorn]

Hi,
Sorry but the VAIO recovery tool, when creating the recovery disk, says 9CD but only one DVD. I've recovered my HDD with my unique DVD and all is in place (windows, sony and 3rd part software!).

[Thalamus.]

Hi,
Sorry but the VAIO recovery tool, when creating the recovery disk, says 9CD but only one DVD. I've recovered my HDD with my unique DVD and all is in place (windows, sony and 3rd part software!).

I had to use 2 discs, even cheaper now then for Sony to supply

[kee-lo_]

Yeah 10p maximum for the media, around £1 to press it, not much to ask is it?