on some systems, the partition may be hidden - then you must unhide it first :
http://www.experts-exchang
http://www.engadget.com/20
Main Topics
Browse All TopicsI am going to replace a hard drive in a Gateway laptop and it has a recovery partition on the hard drive. This computer came with an OS recovery CD but I would like to restore it to new condition programs and all not just the OS. I have placed the old hard drive in my desktop computer to recover specific files. I went to copy the files from the recovery partition but they are not visible in Windows. How can I copy this partition to my desktop and then to the new hard drive? And is there a way to verify that it copied the partition exactly?
This Question has been solved and asker verified All Experts Exchange premium technology solutions are available to subscription members.
Experts Exchange has been collecting answers to technology questions since 1996…3 million and counting! If you have a question, chances are we already have your answer.
If you can't find the exact answer you're looking for, ask our exclusive community of 50,000 experts. You’ll get a personalized answer from a trusted professional.
Thousands of free tech tips, tricks, how-to’s and tutorials are available in our peer reviewed articles section. See for yourself how smart our experts are, no login required.
Access the answers to your technology questions today.
30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.
Members of the expert community talk about why the experience at Experts Exchange is different than what you will find anywhere else.

Try it out and discover for yourself.
30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.
Join the community of experts here and help other tech pros by answering question in your area of expertise. You can earn FREE access to all Experts Exchange's premium features and resources.
on some systems, the partition may be hidden - then you must unhide it first :
http://www.experts-exchang
http://www.engadget.com/20
Do you want to increase the harddrive size by adding a new drive to the laptop?
cloning would be quicker with a program like Norton Ghost ,clone disk to disk and then when that is done you can format the system partition with the recovery disk.
Some recovery disks actually have the option to also create the recovery partition when installing.
Cam_Man595, you must know that this Recovery CD does contain a bare OS only. After use of it you could enjoy some 30days trials or Gateway software only. All other programs and updates will be deleted.
The easier way is to get rid of this partition and use third party imaging software like Norton Ghost, Paragon Drive Backup 9.0 or Acronis True Image.
Create backup of system partition to external storage, replace the drive and restore from that image.
I use Drive Backup 9.0 for this purposes with its Recovery CD and highly recommend it: www.drive-backup.com
Business Accounts
Answer for Membership
by: rindiPosted on 2009-02-11 at 23:29:38ID: 23619870
You need a disk imaging tool to copy the partition to a new HD. Check bootit-ng, the trial version is fully fuinctional (you can use the copy function, or the image function which would make an image file of the recovery partition, and that you could then restore to the new HD).
om/
http://terabyteunlimited.c