44. Guide: How to Delete Hidden Recovery Partition on Vista

By: hypertrophy
From: NotebookReview.com

This only applies to Windows Vista.

*Make sure you have backed up your OEM keycode before deleting the hidden partition.*

The Lenovo Hidden Recovery Partition is a protected partition so you will not be able to delete it through Disk Management as you would with any other normal partition. You will need to use Diskpart. You can still use these steps to delete the hidden recovery partition if you have already done a clean install, but you'll need a 3rd party software to combine it with the primary partition. It is best if you delete the Hidden Recovery Partition first, then go through with a clean install using one of the many guides available on this board.

Step 1.
Burn Recovery Media. Type "Recovery Media" (without quotation marks) into search in the Start Menu. Open the application, and follow the instructions.

Step 2.
Open the Diskpart application by either typing in "Diskpart" (without the quotation marks) into the search, or type "Diskpart.exe" into Run by pressing the Windows key + R.

Step 3.
Now with Diskpart open, you must enter the following command lines:

I. Type "list disk" without the quotation marks and press enter.

II. Type in "select disk 0" and press enter.

III. Then type in "list partition" and press enter.

IV. Then type in "select partition x" x=the recovery partition you wish to delete (i believe it's 1, i dont recall) replace x with the recovery partition number and press enter.

V. Then finally type in "delete partition override" and press enter.

That should do the trick. Best of luck!