Acer Aspire Switch 012 64gb cannot Delete Recovery Partition

neilcperks
neilcperks Member Posts: 6 New User
edited March 2023 in 2014 Archives

When I create a USB recovery disk using Acer Recovery Management, there is no option to delete the computers recovery partition, contrary to what the manual states. How do I delete this partition to recover disk space ?

Answers

  • philetus
    philetus ACE Posts: 4,759 Pathfinder

    If it was me, I would get another HDD and save the old one as it is.If anything happened you could pop it in and go.
    Here is what you want:

    http://www.intowindows.com/how-to-delete-recovery-partition-in-windows-8/

  • neilcperks
    neilcperks Member Posts: 6 New User

    Thanks philetus, but that link  is exactly what I did.

     

    The problem is that step 7 in the process does not exist, no option is given to delete the recovery partition. The only option is "Finish".

     

    Hence I have a perfectly good USB revovery copy, but the partition on the disk still exists and cant find any way to remove it. I have rerun the process a couple of times to see if maybe there was an error, but it although the process goes smoothly there is never any option to delete the partition at the end.

     

    Cheer Neil

     

  • philetus
    philetus ACE Posts: 4,759 Pathfinder

    1. Open a command prompt as administrator.

    2. Run Diskpart application by typing Diskpart in the command prompt.

     

    3. In the “Diskpart” prompt, enter rescan command and press Enter key to re-scan all partitions, volumes and drives available.

     

    4. Then type in list disk and press Enter key to show all hard disk drive available.

     

    5. Select the disk that contains the partition you want to remove. Normally, with just 1 hard disk, it will be disk 0. So the command will be:

    Select disk 0

     

    Finish by Enter key.

     

    6. Type list partition and press Enter key to show all available and created partition in the disk selected.

     

    7. Select the partition that wanted to be deleted by using the following command, followed by Enter key:

    Select partition x

     

    Where x is the number of the recovery partition to be removed and unlocked its space. Be careful with the number of this partition, as wrong number may get data wipes off.

     

    8. Finally, type in delete partition override and press Enter key.

  • neilcperks
    neilcperks Member Posts: 6 New User

    Tried that and went well, chose the recovery partition,  until the final "delete partition override" step where it says "Delete is not allowed on the current boot, system, pagefile, crashdump or hibernation volume"

     

    Thanks for trying, much appreciated

     

    Cheers

     

    Neil

  • neilcperks
    neilcperks Member Posts: 6 New User

    Just an update to say I think the Recovery partition must be locked at source by Acer. I have tried everything, using various software, like disk manager, diskpart, easeus and partition manager, and not one of them will delete the partition. seems like its protected or something. Yet strangely the Acer manual says you can delete it !!!

  • philetus
    philetus ACE Posts: 4,759 Pathfinder

    Boot the computer with a linux live cd or usb driveor

    Take out the hdd and connect it to another computer via USB.Boot the computer with a linux live cd.Use Gparted to delete the partition.

    http://www.linuxliveusb.com/

  • ES1
    ES1 Member Posts: 3 New User

    Hi there,

     

    Any progress in the end?

     

    I have exactly the same problem with a new ES1-111M netbook. Since it only has a 32 GB drive, the 10 GB recovery partition is a significant loss of space. 

     

    I did the same you've tried. Diskpart failed and neither the "Create a recovery" Windows tool nor Acer Recovery Management (which seems to be exactly the same in green)" offered the option to remove the partition after creating a recovery USB drive.

     

    I even suceeded in removing the partition by 1) using a partition tool and 2) faking a windows installation from a bootable Windows USB drive I have. However, in both cases, the system didn't boot afterwards and the repair tools could't fix the issue.

     

    Strangely enough, Acer support told me that they could not reproduce the problem using the same netbook and suggested to send in the computer. They would remove the partition for me. Of course, I would like to avoid this. It seems quite unnecessary to me. There must be a way to delete the partition without spoiling the boot system.

     

    Any further insights would be highly appreciated!

     

    Cheers,

     

    George

  • neilcperks
    neilcperks Member Posts: 6 New User

    Not found a solution, but at least I found the reason.

     

    The Acer Switch sw5-012 uses Wimboot for windows system files (see http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/dn594399.aspx ) which is a compressed image file in a seperate partition from which windows 8.1 uses to boot the system. The idea is that this same partition serves as both the windows system boot files and recovery "partition". This means that there is a considerable saving in file size as there is only one copy of the system. Of course this means that the recovery partition cant be deleted, but in my instance it is only 6 GB in size.

     

    Wimboot can only be used on ssd or eMMC memory, as is the case on the Acer Switch SW5-012. Not sure if this applies in your case but worth a look. I noticed there was no partition on my computer labeled "Recovety Partition", just one called "Image", which is the Wimboot file. You can create a Recovery Drive from this, but you cant delete the image partition as this used to boot windows.

     

    Worth a read of the link earlier in the email which explains it well.

     

    Cheers

     

    Neil

     

  • ES1
    ES1 Member Posts: 3 New User

    The link seems to be dead, but many thanks for the detailed information on this! It definitely allows for digging a bit deeper. And the question is what Acer will do if I actually send in the machine. Keep you posted if I get any news. 

     

    Thanks again!

     

    George 

  • ES1
    ES1 Member Posts: 3 New User

    Update: The link wasn't dead, the hyperlink just has some characters attached that rendered the URL faulty.

     

    This link hopefully works better...

     

    The article is actually sheding some light on this. Now I will have to figure out if formatting the tiny 32 GB drive and doing a regular Windows installation could be an advantage. As I understood, WIMBoot saves storage by allowing the active Windows installation for partly using the recovery partition. Which is quite nice if you want to have a recovery partition. If not, a regular Windows installation that doesn't need to access a WIMBoot recovery partition still might be smaller in size.

     

    So much for today. I'm so glad you've pointed in the right direction, Neil. Now I can finally sleep, dreaming of a brighter future. ;-)   

     

    George 

     

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