Downgrade To Windows Xp Keeping Recovery Partition Intact
Feb 23, 2011
I have a Toshiba L645 which is on win7 but i'd like to downgrade to XP. The laptop has a hidden recovery partition which I would like to keep intact to restore at a future date.How can I downgrade to XP and not delete the recovery partition as it is on same HDD but hidden partition.
I've got a laptop with a partition on the main drive that holds some of the programs that came with the laptop (fingerprint reader, webcam software, etc.), but it's a 28 gig partition, and it's only using 2. I was wondering how I would go about removing the partition, but keeping the programs on the it. Will it work if I just copy-paste them over to the main drive and delete the partition? This is probably a stupid question, but I figure it's better to ask and know than guess and mess something up. There's also a folder in the partition called drivers, so my guess would be the aforementioned copy-paste technique won't work.
I have Unallocated space at the very end of my hard drive, even after the 25gb Recovery Partition, this is due to copying my old hard drive onto this new one via Clonezilla, and it automatically keeping the unallocated space at the end. Can I either move the unallocated space around the Recovery Partition, or delete the Recovery Partition altogether? Sorry if I am being a little unclear.
I've gotten to the point where I need to just reinstall windows completely on my Asus G74SX (too many problems, I want to start fresh.). I encounter an error 1029 with Asus's recovery disks that I made when I had windows working: it says it is recovering all the way to 100% then doesnt work. I am in the process of trying it again so I'll see if it actually managed to wipe my hard drive like it said it was doing, and maybe if it did actually work and reinstall windows.However, I'd like to be able to get into the recovery partition because I would prefer restoring it with Asus as they recommend me to. However, when I hit F9, their target to get there, it doesn't do anything and just reloads the boot screen, with the Asus logo on it. I don't have an actual Wndows recovery CD so that's not an option, and at this point since my hard drive has likely been wiped by these recovery DVDs, I don't think going into Ubuntu and fixing the MBR will do me much good anymore.It may be worth noting that before I last restarted, I marked the Windows partition as active because of a tutorial here, making it so that recovery partition isn't active anymore.
is not empty - it is almost 80% full but when i click on it there are no files. Tried - to the extent of my knowledge - to see if the files are hidden but didn't reach anywhere. Tried a restore point but that didnt work either.
My problem is that my files and folders don't show up under windows explorer.The files and folders are intact, and they DO show up with Tree Size Free, for example, AND THEY ARE ACCESSIBLE! That is, I can view photos and watch video if I launch it from Tree Size Free.So the files are not deleted or anything. They are just not visible to windows explorer.The files and folders don't show up under windows explorer, but the space they occupy is registered so if I right click on the drive and go to properties, it shows all the used space it should, it just won't show the files USING the used space!Again, the files DO show up using other software such as Tree Size Free, and they are accessible and work properly.Any idea why windows explorer cannot see the files, folders or access them?
For stability / application continuity reasons, when I built my computer 1.5 years ago I went with XP Home on an SSD. It's great. Boot times in a blink, even 18 months later. I knew I would eventually want to learn and migrate to Windows 7. That has pretty much happened now. My WEI is pretty low, just because of the hard drive I installed it on--I have Windows 7 64 Ultimate installed on a partition of my 1TB data drive. The poor drive has like 4 partitions. That was probably ill-advised. Anyway, I want to:Partition the SSD, keeping the XP install intact Move my Windows 7 installation to the SSD on the new partition.
I'm upgrading a Compaq Presario running XP that has a recovery partition installed by the manufacturer. It's my understanding that the recovery partition will be useless after the upgrade. Should the drive be reformatted and the partition deleted?
I have my netbook dual-boot WinXP and Windows 7. (I used EasyBCD for the dual-boot setup.)In booting into Windows 7, I used to have the option of the "repair your computer", which brought one several useful tools, if there is problem booting.Of course, the exact same tools are on the Windows 7 setup DVD, which I have. However, with a netbook, I don't always have the USB DVD drive with me, or the DVD, and that recovery stuff boots up much faster from the HDD partition, than from the DVD. So I think it is good to have.(Not at all like the notebook manufacturers recovery partitions. I wouldn't want to use those at all, wiping out all my data.)Recently I upgraded to a larger HDD. I used Acronis to clone my old HDD (at that time in the notebook) to the new HDD (attached via USB enclosure). (It was an older Acronis version, long predating Windows 7. I don't know if I would have had better results with a new version.)Well, at first I could not boot at all, with the new HDD installed. I was able to fix that though. (I forget the details of it at the moment.)Also, my drive letters (I have four partitions-drives) were messed up, so somehow the Acronis cloning did not keep that information, and I had to fix that in both XP and 7, with Disk Management.For the most part though, my partitions were all intact in the new drive. Being a larger HDD, I increased the size of a couple, in the Acronis interface.I realize now though, that I do not have the recovery boot-up option any more. That can show up while booting into Windows 7 and pressing a key, but if one chooses it, it just tells one to put in the Windows 7 DVD. Therefore, that option of booting from the recovery partition seems to be gone.Looking in Disk Management from Win 7, I see an unallocated partition, I think about 8.98 GB, I think. Is that the Windows 7 recovery partition? Did Acronis copy it correctly, but somehow the boot sector on the new drive cannot access it?
I have a Dell XPS laptop. I reinstalled windows a weeks ago using an oem disc.Since then i have notice my sound sometimes stops working. I would like to reinstall to factory. I booted and pressed f8 then clicked repair windows. At the repair menu the dell factory reinstall option is missing.
I have had trouble with Windows 7 media centre and corrupt audio drivers and followed the tutorial install from my manufacturers supplied OEM disc. However, I seem to have installed the fresh install in a recovery partition and so now have 2 installs of windows 7 and am given the option of which one to use on boot up. The audio problems are not there in the second install but it is obviously in the wrong part of the drive as I now get a warning message saying that my recovery drive E is full. How do I uninstall the newly installed version from this drive and then I can go back to the original version and have another go of getting this to work properly. When I tried the install I was not permitted to install into the C Drive (OS) but I presume that this is where it should have gone.
I want to install windows 7 ultimate x64 bit version on my Laptop. currently i have windows home basic version on my laptop with one C drive and one HP Recovery partition as a D drive. If i install ultimate, will i get recovery partition drive?
i have lenovo g550 i have only two drives c and d. i want to partition d drive if ican i will loose my onekey recovery software. without deleting one key recovery software how can i partition my d drive?
So I have a machine on my hands that is suffering registry damage due to viruses that I managed to remove but I still can't get the registry repaired since the computer has no recovery partition and the original cd is gone. System restore did nothing so I'm wondering if there is a way to fix the registry with what those things missing.
Windows 7 64 bit successfully installed on a new 1TB HDD and I am totally happy with it now. I kept my previous 500MB HDD with XP OS intact should I have had any problems with Windows 7. My question is this: I do not intend to use my previous XP HDD now as an alternative boot HDD but would like to access some files from it which I forgot to back up elsewhere. How should I connect it such that I can just access my files without it booting XP or maybe it wont try to boot XP anyway? Don't want to let XP boot and maybe upset things.
I just partitioned my C drive and now have an I: drive that I use for data, music and movies and such. My question is this: if I have to do a system recovery. Will I lose that partition? Or will Windows 7 re-install on the C: drive without touching that partition?
I installed Windows 7 on a formerly Vista Business computer. Now I would like to know, does a clean installation of Windows 7 automatically create a recovery partition or backup? Or do I need to format the Recovery Drive D(from the Vista installation) and make a backup on that drive (D)?
I'm thinking of installing the RC of Windows 7 when it is released tomorrow. But there is one thing that is worrying me. When I go to install 7, i have read that it creates a 200mb partition. On my Acer laptop, there are already 4 paritions, a 9.76GB which does not show up as a drive, a 69.77GB which is labeled as 'ACER', a 66.27GB which is labeled 'DATA' and then a 3.24GB partition which again does not show up as a drive.I know that there is a recovery partition built in, will this 200mb parition affect them? I will be installing (using the upgrade) on to 69.77 Partition, or will it just spilt the 69.77 partition into two?
No install disks, no manual just letter telling me to protect customer data entire drive was wiped clean including Recovery partition. Checked disk management it shows all 4 primary partitions used: 200mb (boot), 169gb (C drive), 281gb (D drive), 16.5gb Recovery partition. I tried F9 when booting (nothing) just boots into OS. This setup is completely useless to me. Called Asus ($50.) for install disk they said call Microsoft, call Microsoft ($99. new disk) they said call Asus, I've already paid for Win 7 once and i'll be damned if I pay for it again. Typical corporation bullshit.What I want to do is install Win 7 on 1st part, 2nd (shared NTFS part), Ubuntu on logical partitions.
I was trying to restore my Toshiba Sattelite L645-S4056 to factory default and reinstall windows 7 by inbuilt recovery system. While i was formatting the computer swtiched off itself. Then i couldnot access inbuilt recovery during booting. The computer wont boot with any windwos cd. It said something like "Cannot boot.Enter a bootable disc". I then installed a linux distero by booting with a USB device.The linux system works fine but i need windows 7. It shows that my hardisk is totally empty. There is no reserved part previously occupied by recovery system.I didn't get a recovery disc with my laptop. Any other dvd wont boot. How can i install back my Windows 7? What is wrong with the system? Is there any way to get windows 7 back?
The hard drive on my netbook is unreadable, so I cannot access the recover partition. I bought a new hard drive. Can I download windows 7 starter from the manufacturer website? My netbook is a dell inspiron mini.
My daughter has a Dell XPS with Windows 7 on it. It was having alot of issues so short verision after several house with Dell support they told me I would have to tell the computer to go back to the factory version. I followed the steps told to me and now nothing works. When I turn the computer on I do get the Windows word to start then a flash of something that could be an error message of some sort but its not there long enough for me to be sure. I then get something about I need to run a repair, which I do but the repair doesnt work. I tried putting the original install disk in the same thing happens. I have been told to try getting the recovery partition to open but I dont know how. Does this sound right? If so how do I do that and if not what should I do.
I have a Asus k52jc laptop with windows 7 home premium pre installed. Now I cant recover my windows installation using recovery partition.It does not appear in the boot menu. But i can see the partition is still there. I cant create a recovery disk either.
just want to know if it is safe to delete the recovery partition so i can unlock more gb in my hp notebook. when i first bought it, it was with vista preinstalled. so the recovery partition is vista, but i did make a complete rescue disk of my computer the first time i turned it on with windows recovery. so my question is, is it ok and with no problem, that i can just format the recovery partition, since i actually never use vista, but windows 7. it wounldt mess my laptop??
Made the mistake of deleting this partition, and really regret it since it would of been handy to have if i install win 7 again. So feeling bad about that. Any way i could get a PQSERVICE (a recovery) partition back on there?
My sister just got a new laptop with 7, then accidentally installed a friend's version of 7 on top of it, thinking it was Microsoft Office. I'm trying to restore to factory settings so she doesn't lose all the software that came with the computer.
I know the recovery partition is on the computer (I made it appear by assigning it a drive letter). But I cannot boot from it (or whatever I need to do to access it).
I have tried the following:
1) Advanced Boot Options -> Repair -> System Image Recovery: no system image -> System Restore: no restore point
2) all possible F# keys at startup, including F10 which got me to Edit Boot Options, which seemed hopeful because it named the partition number, 3, but did not allow me to change it (the recovery partition is 2).
3) F2 -> setup (nothing there)
4) burning an iso of Windows 7 recovery disc, which just gave me the same repair tool as in the 1st attempt.
5) setting the recovery partition as "active" (in fact, I think it was already active).
I recently upgraded my Acer 722 netbook to an 265GB SSD and installed Windows 7 on it. I was wondering if there was a way to create a partition for a recovery environment (just in case something happens). I have a system image of this pc saved, however I feel it would be best to also create a recovery partition.
I am using dell insipiron 1464 model with preinstalled windows 7 home basic os.i have lost my installation cd.now how do i take backup of my os in separate dvd or usb drive with the help of recovery partition.