I have a Compaq notebook with Vista Home Premium 32 bit. HP/Compaq
machines have D:\ recovery partitions, and Iâd like to know if I cam
run Clean Disk, Check Disk, and Defrag on D:\.
Vista from HP has by default C:\ and D:\ on a monthly defrag
schedule. My Security program tells me C:\ is 1% fragmented and D:\ is
15% and recommends I defrag D:\. My security program just sees D:\ as a
drive and not a recovery partition I assume. So, I donât know if I am
allowed to defrag D:\ or perform any basic maintenance on it. I also
donât understand how D:\ got 15% fragmented to begin with.
Personally Iâm amazed at how little information manufacturers give
you sometimes about how they decided to set up your machine. HP and
Compaq arenât the only ones to create a D:\ partition and use it for
recovery, my Dell laptop came the same way.
I mean, they could at least tell you whatâs on it and what itâs
for.
So, whatâs safe to do to it?
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First realize that itâs not just your security program that sees D:\
as âjust another driveâ, because thatâs exactly what it is: just
another logical drive. A portion of your hard disk thatâs been
partitioned off to appear as a second drive letter. No more, no
less.
What makes it the recovery partition is what your manufacturer puts
on it, and the tools that know what should be there should you ever
need to perform a recovery.
nothing is also very safe.â
So, with that in mind:
-
Defrag: go for it. Like you Iâm surprised it came
fragmented, but thereâs nothing at all wrong with defragmenting (or
âdefraggingâ) it. Given that the drive is never used otherwise, youâll
probably only need to do that once. -
Chkdsk: go for it. It better show no errors,
though, otherwise Iâd be concerned that the contents of the recovery
partition may be corrupt. Thatâs good to know now, as opposed to later
when you actually need it. -
Clean up: itâs probably safe, but in all
honesty, Iâd avoid it. The problem is that we donât really know with
absolute certainty that a cleanup wouldnât delete something important.
Almost by definition everything on the recovery partition is there for
a reason, and even if not, thatâs the assumption we need to make. (Mine
even has a recycle bin with deleted files. My guess is thatâs just
being sloppy, but Iâm not going to take the risk; Iâm leaving it alone, just in
case.)
Now, there is another alternative.
Do nothing. Ignore it. Donât touch it.
The recovery partition is not part of your normal, day-to-day use of
your machine. Defragging it wonât help you in any way. Chkdsk might
tell you of a problem ahead of time, but if the recovery partitionâs
never been used the chance of there being a problem are very small. And
cleaning up the drive, besides having a small chance of deleting
something important, also wonât help you, and wonât free up any space
that youâd actually use.
So while some things are safe to do, doing nothing is also very
safe. In fact, perhaps the safest of all.
I submitted the question and was very pleased you selected it for an answer ..HP Support has kept my ticket open and just replied that the âfixed image recovery partitionâ cannot become fragmented, its size is fixed so no room to become fragmented..also informed that any attempt to defrag will just receive an error message..they would not comment on why or how Security program sees it as 15% fragmented if it cannot become fragmentedâŠalso would not comment on why HP installed Vista OS has defrag default set to defrag C:\ and D:\ since D cannot get fragmented and will just generate an error messsage. Which I guess all HP/Compaq owners are receiving even though I have yet to get the error message. If I had Vista OEM OS installed I could understand why C and D on defrag schedule. To Vista OEM C and D are real (not virtual) seperate drives. The HP installed version of Vista OS should know D is an image (a virtual drive) not a real second drive. So, your comment âIâm amazed at how little information manufacturers give you sometimes about how they deceided to set up your machineâ is why I have persued this with HP and also with Microsoft. Your clear and concise response to my question is allot more than HP and Microsoft have done. Many thanks and much respect for ask-leo.com
This article has me wondering if itâs overkill to backup the backup partition on a regular basis? After reading some of your commentary, I purchased Acronis True Image 10 and have it set up to make an incremental backup of the C: drive every evening to an external USB hard drive. About once I month, I switch to another partition on that external drive and make a new full image, followed by nightly incremental images. Every month, I also make a full image of the backup partition, D: on our laptop. The PC doesnât show a backup partition, but does show a FAT16 and a FAT32 partition, so I back those up once a amonth, too. Iâm not doing incremental backups on them, but am I wasting my time on these additonal partitions?
how do i open a Recovery Partition this partition on my HP pc it has seemed to fill up and i cant to see what is in there . i can not defrag because it has onley 14% free space left.. please help
Barry
it has xp on the pc
I have an HP pavillion 521n desktop pre service pack XP Home 55277OEM edition, is there a way to update the recovery partition w/ M$ SP2 and SP3
so that I dont have to languise with the blasted post install of these Packs??? I am fairly computer literate, have found info for Windows XPe, BartPE, liveCD. I am able to access the hidden partition at will? I severly need help with this conumdrum!!!
My HP laptop has Windows XP and a recovery partition.
Iâm wondering what happens when I install Windows 7.
Does the recovery partition now recognise Windows 7 or does it default back to Windows XP?
08-Aug-2009
I just wanted to add a little note about adding Windows 7. On my desktop, my main hard drive has 2 partitions â 1 with XP (F:)and 1 with Windows 7 RC (C:), and I added a 2nd, larger hard drive (drive G:) where I store all of my videos, pictures, flight simulators, etc. I can access drive G from either OS. When installing Windows 7, it MUST be installed last! If you need to re-install XP for whatever reason youâll most likely need to install Windows 7 again as well. The reason for this is that when your computer boots up, youâre given a choice of âstarting Windows 7â or âstart using an earlier version of Windowsâ. If Windows 7 is installed before XP, XP doesnât âknowâ to give you a choice and will automatically boot into Windows XP. Youâll still be able to access anything stored by Windows 7 on the hard drive, but the OS itself wonât run and youâre stuck in XP (unless you know how to change these settings in the BIOS, but the average user probably doesnât).