HDD partitioning (Lenovo W700)

[mikidi-kikidi]

My Lenovo W700 laptop came with the hard drive partitioned in three parts:

C: - a huge 287GB partition where Windows is located.
S: - a small 10GB partition where there's some backup things
Q: - a tiny 2GB where there's also some backup boot things

This seems so weird to me. I'm accustomed to having a ~80gig partition for the OS and then leaving the rest for various media and other things that take a lot of space. But the Vista Disk Management tool will only let me shrink the huge C: partition by only 120GB, after which it'll still be too big/unpractical. Why? So weird.

Also if anyone has any Lenovo specific experience, how important are the backup/boot things on the other HDD's, should I go through the trouble of storing them on a DVD or something? I'd be able to find them somewhere online surely if things come to that?

 

[buwish]

If you find it to be a pain, you could always re-load Windows, wipe all the partitions in the process during set up and set them up how you would like. Of course, be sure to copy the back up partitions to a DVD in ISO format just in case the time comes to reload everything.

 

[mikidi-kikidi]

Thanks for the mega fast reply.

Lenovo didn't actually ship Vista in any kind of disc form with this laptop. The only disks I have are for the XP recovery.

I think the backup partitions of the HDD are supposed to be the Vista discs once you burn them. But it says using the discs will return the machine to its original state it was shipped with. Do you think I will be able to do a clean install with them?

Well I'm trying it now.

 

[buwish]

You should be able to if they burn right. Use a program like ImageBurn to do so (iso form). To test if it worked, try booting from one of the discs and see if it bring you to windows set up.