I’m looking through my drives and noticed that C drive is roughly 14GB with 8.61GB free and 5.34GB used.  I also noticed that D drive is 18.27GB and has only 60MB used.

What is the purpose of this layout?  It seems that drive D has a lot more space, which means that perhaps I should have installed the applications onto Drive D rather than C?  Is this what you all have done?

Hi, I knew about the 5GB partition, but if you look at what I said:

I have two drives:

C is 14 GB (5.34 Used and 8.61 Free)
D is 18 GB (60MB Used and basically 18GB free)

A partition should show up as a separate drive.  I would have thought that the layout SHOULD look like this:

C Drive = 35GB
D Drive = 5GB

But this is not the case….really confused here.

The 5GB recovery partition is hidden, so you won’t see it as a drive letter. The full drive is 37.2GB, so what you’re getting is the 32GB that’s left over split up. I remember the manual for my SR saying that Sony partitioned the D drive to be larger because they expect you to store your media files on there and install programs onto the C drive. In any case, getting rid of the recovery partition was one of the first things I did, and the extra 5GB was worth the hassle.

I see, that’s starting to make sense now.  So basically, they intended C: for programs and D: for media files, eh?  That clears a lot up although I’m not sure if I like it

Also, since I already burned my Recover CDs…what is the purpose of the recovery partition?  Don’t the CDs essentially contain the same data as what’s in the 5GB partition?

Thank you all again for bearing with these newbish questions

Yes, the Recovery Partition has the same stuff as the CD set you burned, now if you are willing to wipe everything off your computer then you can boot from those CDs and run the Recovery Wizard, which will allow you to delete the Recovery Partition and merge the drive into a contiguous 37.2GB C drive.

Hmm, couldn’t I just use something like Partition Magic and manipulate the partitions that way?  Or is there some advantage of using the Recovery discs?

TR1 owners don’t have the 5GB hidden partition issue but they do have the split partitions about evenly split. I actually ended resizing them a few times using Partition Magic 8. Oddly enough, I ended up resizing them back to nearly the regular setup.

The reason why is that I typically like to create two partitions on any drive. The C: drive is my boot drive that has all of system and application files. The D: drive is then my data drive with nearly all of my data files and settings. I usually move my “My Documents” folder to the D: drive and then anally store everything under there…(i.e. My Icons, My E-Mail, My Pictures, My Videos, My Instant Messages, My Finances, etc.). I then backup my data drive regularly and periodically backup my C: drive (using incrementals).

So, in the case of catastrophic boot failure. I simply restore the last good C: partition (takes about 8 minutes) and am usually good to go. All the data is already on D: and unfazed. I might have to re-install a few apps but everything just works. This happened recently when I was mucking around in the registry and hosed my Windows XP setup. No problem, I just restored, re-installed 2 apps, and everything was good.

The backup program I use is Acronis TrueImage 7.0.

I find this technique good for getting me up and running faster whenever disaster rears its ugly head. I don’t like downtime and this method keeps it to a minimum.

You can use Partition Magic, but the cons are that it costs money and cannot get rid of the 5GB Recovery Partition. I tried it, but it didn’t work and I ended up backing up my drive and wiping it clean. If you’re okay with leaving the invisible 5GB partition where it is, then Partition Magic will work great, but if you want to get rid of it, the Sony Recovery Discs are the way to go.

Ugh, I just thought to myself that before I start mucking around with partitions, that I better check if the CDs were made correctly.

It looks like the last disc (Disc 1) didn’t burn right.  Does that mean I have to make all 8 discs all over again?  Is there a place I can buy or download some premade recovery CDs/DVDs?  Or at least, download the image for the 1st CD?

EDIT: I just read the other threads concerning getting the Sony DVDs direct from Sony itself.  I’ll give this a go…

I have a question regarding the burning of the recovery CD’s. Is it possible to check them out without trying to restore to make sure that they burnt correctly? As in does Sony have some util that checks the CRC on the CD’s, etc?

Am I the only one that does a once-over and formats and reinstalls everything about every 5-6 months?

Erik

FastLaneJB: well, I don’t know of any.  The only thing I noted was that the Startup Disc (the last CD in the set to be burned) didn’t take any time at all.  Looking at it in Explorer also showed no contents.  And finally, I tried booting up with it and nothing happened—it just went straight to the regular HDD boot sequence.

tifosiv122: I used to do that, but now I’m short on time, I may have the same Windows install for *gasp* a whole year!

As an update: I contacted Sony and they agreed to send me the DVD, after quite a bit of talking.  I just faxed in my invoice so that they can verify that it’s under warranty, I imagine.  So with luck, I’ll have the DVD by the end of next week.