I recently bought a PC with a 200 gig Western Digital Hard Drive. On this drive is a hidden partition with the original compressed software stored.
The system came with a reload CD that would in the event of a disaster, access the hidden partition and restore all original software including the O/S.
I would like to use 'partition magic' to partition the drive to four 50gig partitions. Also is it best to change from fat32 to ntfs ?
Partition magic does not see the hidden partition at the moment. Am I likley to lose the stored data if I go ahead ?
System is AMD Athalon64 3200+ 1gig ddr ram Windows XPsp1
Here Is Info on the reload system. After I bought the PC I found that Tiny support is the worst on the Planet, to have a tech question answered one must have the very expensive service contract in place, or pay 1GBP per minute. Many pc forums here in the uk are full of compaints about this company and its support.
Regards Dave
TIME GROUP RELOAD DISK POLICY
Changes in our mutual agreement with Microsoft to reduce piracy mean that the Time Group now pre-installs the OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) version of Windows onto its computers but cannot supply a separate Windows XP recovery CD (this is only available to those who purchase the full retail version of Windows).
The Time Group understands that some customers may require a facility to easily restore their computers back to the original factory settings by completely reloading all of the pre-installed software.
Over the past year, we have invested in a software development team that has developed a patented process of doing this from a completely hidden partition on the hard disk. This process is unique and the facility is enabled via a RELOAD CD that is bundled FREE with all time support packages. The reload CD does not include any Windows XP software programs and is different to a Backup CD (which includes a copy of the preloaded software including Windows XP).
One of the advantages of this reload CD approach is that, because there is no Windows software on the CD itself, the risk of piracy is eliminated. The CD simply includes software that enables the hidden software on the hard disk to be re-installed. The old Backup CD mechanism limits the software bundle size to just what could be restored by one CD and is more prone to piracy. For example, a backup CD can be used to install a pirate copy of Windows on the same make of PC even when it is encrypted.
The CD is available to purchase separately when a support package is not taken and we hope to build additional features into this product in the future. Over 85% of our customers take up some sort of support package. Some of the revenue from the support packs and reload CD are put back into further software and product development.
Overall we feel the benefits of this reload system are sufficient to justify this cost, whilst at the same time allowing us to work with Microsoft to reduce the risk of Piracy. Using our re-load CD it is impossible to copy Windows XP onto any other PC.
