On Aug 19, 2011, at 4:06 PM, Gordon Smith wrote:
Hi Martin
The hidden partitions, or actually I should call them protected
partitions, not just hidden, contain the WD software for Windows &
Mac, plus the manuals. You see the Windows software if you're
running Windows and the Mac software if Mac. But you cannot delete
those partitions no matter what you do.
Not to be contrary here, but you most certainly delete the
partitions, it's not difficult, and I had a case recently where we
were trying to restore an hp laptop, and it very happily deleted
itself during the restore phase, because apparently, the install
program expected to see 2 partitions, (a c: and a d: drive) and it
didn't bother to check if they were actual partitions, or the
(supposedly) protected restore partition.
We'd used fdisk, to clear out all the old partitions, so there would
be only a single c: drive, because this person didn't like having a
c: and a d: drive, she wanted everything on a single drive.
We'd used fdisk, deleted the two c: and d: partitions, rebuilt it as
a single partition, and then booted into the recovery partition, and
told it to do it's recovery process.
Well, the folks at hp (in their infinite wisdom) happily removed the
first two partitions on the disk, assuming (wrongly in this case)
that they were the c: and d: drives.
Shortly after that, the recovery process halted, claiming it couldn't
find a required file. Rebooting with our boot cd, we discovered
there was no longer any recovery partition, the recovery program had
just blindly removed the first two partitions on the disk, and hadn't
bothered to make sure they were regular partitions first. This of
course made the computer useless, and we could no longer fix the
machine.
A call to hp ran into a brick wall (as expected) stating that they
could do nothing, because they did not have the computer i their
posession. Repeated requests for a recovery cd were met with
stonewalling, and just plain denials that it was necessary.
Finally, I found an iso image online, downloaded it, burned it to a
dvd, and installed her os from scratch, and she got her computer back
in working order.
Of course, the hd failed again shortly afterwords, but that's
anoother story.
It's just absolutely mind boggling how so many companies not only use
recovery partitions, but absolutely refuse to believe that the
recovery partition could be damaged, comprimised, or damaged in any
way. How it's possible for otherwise intelligent people to
completely miss the fact that recovery partitions are subject to
exactly the same things as regular partitions, and sometimes get
irretrievably damaged is beyond me, but yet, they persist in this
behavior, and I for one am very disappointed that apple has gone this
route. Sure, it's cheaper for the company in question, but the
headaches it causes can't be worth the effort it saves.
Apple of all companies, one that is usually highly prized for their
technical ability, and one that constantly inovates, instead of
following the crowd, strikes me as absolutely insane for them to
finally go this route, but since nobody asked me, I guess that
opinion remains my own. :)
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