Delete and Remove to Unlock EISA Hidden Recovery or Diagnostic Partition in Vista
All OEM computers, desktop or notebook PCs from Dell, HP, Lenovo, IBM, Acer, ASUS, Sony, Fujitsu, Toshiba and many more probably comes with special EISA partition either in FAT or NTFS file system that contains system recovery utility to rollback to factory settings and/or diagnostic tools. The special partition, normally hidden, can have a size of from few gigabytes to 10 GB or more. In some OEM system, such as those from IBM/Lenovo, is impossible to delete from within Windows.
Some EISA hidden special partition doesn’t even have drive letter assigned, nor can be deleted by using Disk Management snap-in of computer Management in Control Panel Administrator Tool. The partition cannot be merged into any other existing partition either. Some users reported that even advanced third-party disk management tool such as Acronis Disk Director Suite and Partition Magic cannot manipulate, change, remove and delete the partition either under Windows desktop.
The special recovery partition is protected and locked to secure and avoid accidental deletion of the recovery partition, which is important when to recover and reinstall operating with needed drivers and software application when system corrupts or fails. Some recovery procedure which installed in the EISA partition can be activated with just one key press, or access during boot up.
Some users may not want this special recovery partition, which can possibly free up a few GBs of hard disk storage space. As mentioned, it’s possibly almost impossible to delete this special recovery or diagnostic partition under Windows operating system. Some tips provided on the net recommend users to do removal process under DOS environment, or from another operating system on dual boot or multiple boot system.
However, it’s recommended that users check with manufacturer first if the OEM provides any removal and deletion procedure or guide, such as those provided by Lenovo/IBM and HP. If none is found, it’s possible to remove the recovery partition from Windows Vista, by using advanced Diskpart, a text-mode command line interpreter based on scripts that manages hard disk, partition and volume in Vista (also available for free download for XP, 2000, and 2003).
Here’s the trick to delete and remove the EISA recovery or diagnostic partition in Vista. Before proceeding with the deletion action, make sure that at least a set of Recovery Disc Media has been created. Else, you won’t be able to restore your computer to working and factory default condition when any problem on PC requires reinstallation.
- Open a command prompt as administrator.
- Run Diskpart application by typing Diskpart in the command prompt.
- In the “Diskpart” prompt, enter rescan command and press Enter key to re-scan all partitions, volumes and drives available.
- Then type in list disk and press Enter key to show all hard disk drive available.
- Select the disk that contains the partition you want to remove. Normally, with just 1 hard disk, it will be disk 0. So the command will be:
select disk 0
Finish by Enter key.
- Type list partition and press Enter key to show all available and created partition in the disk selected.
- Select the partition that wanted to be deleted by using the following command, followed by Enter key:
select partition x
where x is the number of the EISA based recovery partition to be removed and unlocked its space. Be careful with the number of this partition, as wrong number may get data wipes off.
- Finally, type in delete partition override and press Enter key.
Once the partition has been deleted, exit from Diskpart, and now users can use the much familiar and much easier Disk Management tool in Windows (diskmgmt.msc) to manipulate the freed unallocated partition. Users can create a new volume (partition) with this space, or simply merge it to existing partition by extending the size of the existing partition.
Related Articles
- How to Delete and Remove Recovery Partition in HP Computer
- HP “Partiton Overlaps System Recovery Partiton” Error After Deletion
- Disable and Remove ThinkPad Hidden Service Partition
- IBM (Lenovo) ThinkPad Recovery CD
- How to Avoid 200MB Hidden System Partition From Been Created During Windows 7 Installation
- How To Remove and Disable Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool
- Paragon Partiton Manager 10 Express Edition Free Download
- Free Partition Manager 9.5 Professional Serial Number Key Code
- Change or Resize Partition (NTFS, FAT or FAT32) Size in Windows Vista
- Download Free Partition Wizard Home or Business Edition
Entries (RSS)
July 4th, 2009 01:06
THANK-YOU SO MUCH!!!
June 20th, 2009 12:34
thank you so very much
it worked
June 15th, 2009 12:48
PLEASE HELP !!!
I FORMATED this 200 MB partition as NTFS with Gparted Live CD and now My Windows Vista Ultimate 64 Bits doesn´t load. The complete disk is not visible. I can see the data is there with GetDataBack. I need to recover this 200 MB partition so I can boot my Win Vista Ultimate 64 bits. Please somebody help !!! Thanks !!
May 17th, 2009 00:20
Thanks
May 1st, 2009 08:39
You’re a god send!
April 10th, 2009 07:03
thank you so much. with your directions i was able to free up 42gb on my hd.
April 1st, 2009 00:39
I have written a document to help those who want to copy, modify, or delete the OEM recovery partions…
http://www.4shared.com/file/96008112/1e06bed1/OEMparts.html
March 26th, 2009 20:02
simply awesome
thx
March 26th, 2009 17:32
AUTHOR AND ALL OTHER READERS: SEE THIS SITE. SIMPLE, 30 SECONDS, NO SOFTWARE NEEDED: (works on Vista and XP, using the disk partition manager in DOS)
http://norsetech.net/kb/how-to-delete-eisa-partition/
March 18th, 2009 06:00
I’m using the HDD from a defunct Sony Viao as an external drive and the now useless EISA partition is still there taking up valuable real estate. Does this work on external drives?
March 16th, 2009 07:11
Worked like a charm on an old Lenovo laptop hard drive. Thank you so much!
February 27th, 2009 05:43
Thanks for the guide, it was really helpful. And diskpart saved a lot of time that i would boot into a linux and do this in a VERY longer way.
Thank you so much, it saved me 102MB only. But nothing on it was used.
February 17th, 2009 22:51
Worked perfectly for me on a VAIO AW21. Thanks a lot! This freed up 15Go
February 11th, 2009 01:07
Diskpart may refuse to delete an EISA partition, as it did in my case.
I was able to get rid of the partition by using the CLEAN command in diskpart. This removes all configuration information from the disk, which may not be acceptable when only needing to delete the EISA partition. It was what I needed, though, since I wanted a clean disk in order to start from scratch.
Anyone know how to delete an EISA partition when all one needs is to delete that partition?
February 5th, 2009 12:32
Regardless of the high quality of the hard drive parts,it may fail at any point of time without any reason.there may be some logical error in our hard drive the reason could be virus attack or some system malfunction.It may occur during normal operations due to external or internal factors.For a common user it may difficult to recover data by your self as i case of mine when i lost my data i could not retrieve or recover it then luckily i find a recovery tool called Stellar Phoenix Partition Recovery Software which helps me and recovery my lost partition.This software can recover lost partition,recover lost, missing, formatted,inaccessible or deleted data from hard drive, floppy disk, CD, DVD,USB storage media.you may try this software may be it will help you as well.
February 5th, 2009 01:40
IF YOUR HARD DRIVE IS ACIDENTLY CONVERTED TO EISA PARTITION AND YOU STILL HAVE VALUABLE FILES ON IT THEN USE “GET DATA BACK” PROG, IT CAN COPY YOUR FILES FROM EISA PARTITION TO YOUR NTFS or FAT HARD DRIVE…. IF YOU USE VISTA THEN TURN USER ACOUNT CONTROL BEFORE (known as UAC)
January 31st, 2009 04:38
Thanks!!!
January 30th, 2009 17:16
Just perfect! 10x alot!
January 28th, 2009 05:09
[...] type in delete partition override and press Enter key. Meer info hier: Delete and Remove to Unlock EISA Hidden Recovery or Diagnostic Partition in Vista My Digital Life __________________ Sony VAIO VGN-FW11M Core2 Duo P8400 :.: Intel Centrino 2 :.: 2×2048 DDR2 [...]
January 26th, 2009 14:59
Very nice and easy.
thank you very much
January 20th, 2009 00:54
Excellent.. exactly what I needed to get rid of my Sony Vaio recovery partition, close to 7 gigs of wasted space
December 30th, 2008 01:24
great, so simple and easy
thanks
December 25th, 2008 20:52
super instructions easy to follow and works without any problems….you have just freed up 7GB for me…thank you…would recommend to everyone who is looking at doing this…
December 25th, 2008 20:52
super instructions easy to full and works without any problems….you have just freed up 7GB for me…thank you…would recommend to everyone who is looking at doing this…
December 13th, 2008 17:21
wow simply awesome
congrats on discovering this great tool…:D