I was reading on here about people deleting the recovery partition to grab a little extra space.  I have a TR1AP and thus have only a 30GB hard drive. 

It does not appear that I have a recovery partition, none shows up in disk management.  My C and D drive are each 13.9gb.  This doesn’t quite add up to 30gb which I know is common and that the partition is almost 5gb.  Nevertheless I thought maybe there might be some hidden space to be unlocked.

Also, any advice for making the most out of my 30gb, I read some posts on merging the partitions, this seems like a good idea, but I wonder why the computers didn’t ship that way to begin with?

My thought is that perhaps depending on how much hard drive is being used, that could determine when it is more effiecient to merge, and when to leave seperate.  Right now my C has only about 40% free and I store no media at all on it.  I know that a drive runs better with a higher percentage of free space, I know that programs run better off the C.  I wouldn’t really take anything off the C since it is mostly programs. 

Will I see a performance difference between for example 55% free on the C and 40%. 

are there other advantages to having the drive merged, can it access more consistently for example or something to a similar effect?

Would it ever make sense to put programs that run media in the same drives as the media?

Anyhow, since this is my first post, I have to say this forum is awsome.  I am the type to do mods, I have on other sony laptops I have had but knowing which parts, where to get them, and how to put them in makes it something more empowering and less daunting.  This forum is the type of thing that will keep this model alive for a while and I am glad to see there are other people out there who recognize what a gem this unit really is.  Something I haven’t seen mentioned yet that I might post on; I use the web cam and you can record at 640 x 480 in 30fps with this thing, perfect resolution for a student at lecture.  Why does no one else incorporate the camera, it is so much more than a gimmick. Who has some good ideas on how to capture video in various situations and with various software?