Hidden Partition

Hi

Factorys can hide and change the size of a HDD by using internal jumpers by taking the HDD apart, which obviously we cant ajust.

Some times this is done in order to RE-USE HDD that have bad sectors on them, so the factory people disable (lock off) this section from broken HDD that have been sent back to the manurfacturer as a swap for a new one.

I had a HDD swap out for a client and we got a 20gig HDD which used to be a 40gig HDD. The 40 gig was covered up by a white sticker.

H

>>It has 20 GB HD. that for sure!

How do you KNOW?

What is the MAKE and MODEL of this drive.  I think you're incorrect about this being a 20GB drive.

Huseyin1,

BTW, I've seen that "trick" also.  Generally these are REFURB drives.  They were refurbished by the manufacturer and have had their "guts" swapped out.  Since most drives are designed/built in families they may take the "body" of a 40GB and put the "guts" of a 20GB in a refurbishment.

But I've never seen a drive MARKED as one size that really was a different size.

Jhance, It is 20GB for sure! I dont have the laptop here but aida32 gave me the model and a simple search in the Internet says it is a 20GB!!!

Don't forget please that after I have deleted the 16GB and create a clean partition (using PQ Partition Magic 8.0) I restored it to factory state using IBM's buildin menu.

Again, the VENDOR and MODEL #!!!!  I guess it's really easy for you to keep saying "20GB for sure" but if you can't produce the make/model you're just blowing smoke.

I will take in a few hours the computer and post here exactly what aida32 says.

Forget what AIDA32 says.  LOOK at the unit and get it's MAKE/MODEL NUMBER.

Ok Ok Ok............

I will take the HD in my hands and post here what the lable says. just give me the time.......

BTW why you are ignoring the fact that it has some partition there containing gigas of IBM's apps, winxp setup files, drives and more THIS IS A FACT
it has 16GB pure and clean partition + restore partition.

I'm confused, are you saying you have a 20 gig hd that you only get to see 16, but know for a fact the other hidden 4 still exist bc they contain all of IBM's program apps?

If that's the case, I don't know what to tell you.  I've seen drives where the factory installation is backed up on a second partition, but never a case where that backup partition was hidden from the user.

I would assume you could install XP on it w/out any problem, but no guaruntee that it would give u the entire 20 gigs.  It would probably leave the 4 gig from IBM alone and work in the partition you see available to you.

My advice to you would be to contact IBM and ask them.  

hello again, go into FDISK and then hit option 4, and tell us what it says, you shopuld see all partitions, and using NTFS (from XP) will use the HDD to it's full optimization.

H

Dear dogztar.

So you know IBM's habit....
Now back to my original question: How can they (and me too) implement such a super secret partition.

Huseyin1 and other good experts

The laptop will be under my hands in less than 24 hours, please stay in touch!

(I am sorry not having the lap while I am asking, I thought it is a known issue)

I guess another question is why do you want to do this?  If the partition is hidden, you won't be able to run XP from it.  Partition Magic can make hidden partitions, but I really don't see the benefit (other than hiding data in one OS from another).  In any case, 2000/XP can see and assign drive letters to these partitions.  My IBM at work had the "hidden" recovery partition, you can use DiskMGMT.MSC (start/run/diskmgmt.msc) to assign a drive letter and mount the drive in My Computer.  There's not much to see though; the files are all in some strange compressed format.

-dog*

Hi dogztar.

a REAL hidden partition can be very usefull.

Me too as IBM, would like to hide the recovery data from my users (BUT, that I can do simply with any partition tool).

Also, some of my clients wants to hide them Internet trails (movies pictures favorits chat etc) from them kids. To implement that I will need to TOTALY hide them partition as IBM does. OR to lock them partition with permissions and passwords so even a clever boy will fail to break in. (I think, I will post another question for that)

Do not delete hidden partition (if you have ), usually it contain system and diagnostic utilities and system recovery disks (utility) rely on it to return the system to working mode.

>>Also, some of my clients wants to hide them Internet trails (movies pictures favorits chat etc) from them kids.
Well, no need to start making hidden partitions for that, especially with the difficult steps that would require the user to jump through, why not just format the drive as NTFS and correctly configure NTFS permissions for the drive?  As long as the parent logs out, the kid can't get into their files.

As far as storing recovery data...even with a "hidden" partition, Win2K/XP disk management can still see it (as I stated above) so it wouldn't really be all that hidden.  Are you talking about making a small (~4GB or so) partition on the drive, putting the client's restore files (i.e. Ghost image) then hiding it?  That's doable, and you can even configure your restore disk to go directly to there using the src= and dst= commands on the Ghost command line.  Just make it a regular partition, then before delivering the PC to the user, remove the drive letter assignment with Disk Management.

This is all of course assuming you're using XP or 2000, on Win98 that is another matter (but please tell me you're not deploying Win98/ME!)

-dog*

1175089 thanks!

dogztar! You should reward 5,000 points not a mere 500. I like your style!!!

Though one can implement permissions and passes with NTFS, will it be secure enough? Can a paranoic parent sleep peacefully?

Thanks for your perls about recovering.

We are talking about XP Pro & home

Well, if the kid is really that determined, there are certainly ways around the NTFS permissions (using NTFS-DOS or a Linux distribution with a boot disk, but they would need someplace to write the files to, they couldn't do much with them from DOS mode).

Other than that, NTFS permissions are very secure as long as the parent's password is not known.  You just have to configure them properly.  One item of note...do not *DENY* the Everyone group permissions to a folder structure, as Everyone includes the Administrators group.  You can get around this, but its preferable to not get stuck by this problem in the first place.  By default in XP, all users can access all parts of the harddrive, so you'll need to set the properties on C:\Documents and Settings\<username> so that only Administrators and <username> have rights.  The child accounts should be standard User accounts.

-dog*

OK I hope that everyone still listening.

Now at last the lap is under my hands. Here are the findings:

IADA===MODEL ID : IC25N020ATCS04-0 cylinders:34921, Heads:15, Sectors Per Track: 63, Bytes per sector:512
Unformated Capacity 16113!!!!!!!!!!

jhance: The HD is in my hands the label says: MODEL: IC25N020ATCS04-0    MAKE: Hitachi Global.

dogztr: DiskMGMT.MSC says: 15.73GB

Huseyin1: FDISK: Total disk space is 16109 Mbytes ( 1 Mbyte = 1048576 bytes)

ghost 16113 mb

Partition Magic 8.1: 16109MB

etc etc etc

Ok I find it:

It is some kind of linux partition

http://www.google.com/search?as_q=hidden+partition+ibm+laptop&num=10&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&lr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=&safe=images

Now I will need to learn Linux 8-O

hmmm
i'm not entirely sure bout this
somebody tell me if i'm wrong/right
but i recckon that the memory that is taken off the hdd is used for the booting up of the laptop
not 100% sure, but my friend today said sumin bout "format mdr" in dos mode. which formats EVERYTHING from the computer
not recommended u do that!!
anyway jus thinkin, the memory used to boot up the computer mayb in the hidden partition/memory used to boot the comp up.

blade_377: the command you mean is "fdisk /mbr" which just writes a new master boot record to the drive, it doesn't format anything.  It will however probably remove the IBM message that says "Press F11 for Setup" or whatever.  Its using a different boot manager of some sort (like LILO or GRUB from Linux) to generate that message, then if you don't choose anything it continues on.  The space on the HDD that is used by the hidden partition is for reinstalling the system to "factory default" (which of course wipes out any programs or data you've accumulated and should only be used as a last resort).

-dog*

ahh k
wasn't so sure ^_^""
thx for correctin me-
=]
shows how much i knw bout computers -_""

Well, this is how you learn...now fdisk /mbr will probably stick with you and you'll know what it does.

-dog*