A Partition editing question for the absolute experts .. !

[ahmadka]

Hey all ... So I just got this new ASUS 1001P Eee PC Netbook and found that there are several partitions in the system .. Two are detected in Windows but there are another 2 which seem to be hidden (I found them using the partition editing software) .. So in total there are four partitions .. Also I'm assuming one of these two partitions is for this 'Express Gate' feature (browse the internet at boot time basically, using a very small and quick linux based OS) thing and the other is for the Recovery stuff ..

Now suppose I want to combine the first two partitions and leave the hidden ones as they are, how would I do this ? .. I fear that if I erase the first two partitions and make a new partition covering the first two, then the Express Gate and Recovery features might not work, even if I didn't touch their partitions ... How do I dice the first two partitions but also keep functions of the third and fourth partitions intact ?

I can probably try to combine the first two partitions together in Windows (using Partition Magic or something) without explicit formatting, but what if I DO need to erase -> combine -> format the first the two partitions .. How do I ensure the functions of third and fourth partitions keep working and are unaffected ?

ASUS has recently started to NOT include recovery discs OR make an method available in the netbook for us to create the recovery discs ourselves .. So basically if I screw up, then the third and fourth partitions may leave me forever, which I would really like to avoid ..

 

[gimp]

screen shot of how they're sorted?

it's basically:
1 2 3 4

and you want to get rid of 1 and 2, and leave 3 and 4?
what do you plan on doing with the first 2 partitions?
did you want to remove partitions 1 and 2, and essentially add that free space to partition 4?

 

[ambientZ]

Whats on the first 2 partitions? and
Why do you want to combine the first 2 partitions?

If its windows 7, it has a small separate boot partition you should leave alone.

And i'd do a full disk backup before you start editing anything.

 

[cybereality]

If possible, you might want to make a carbon copy of the whole drive and back it up somewhere before you do anything. I have one of those ASUS netbooks too, and decided to dual-boot with Linux. However, when I installed Linux it cleared out the hidden recovery partition and claimed the space. I did ghost the Windows partition first (thankfully) but I would have liked to keep the recovery partition as a backup as well. So make sure to backup.