Vista to XP downgrade partition question

[munkyeetr]

I am going to remove Vista from my friends Toshiba A210 notebook and put XP on. When I look at the Disk Management applet it shows 3 partitions; one is 1.46GB and 100% free, next is 5.56GB and also 100% free, third is 179.29GB and has Vista installed on it.

What I want to do is delete all the partitions and then create one Primary for XP and an Extended/Logical for data storage.

My question is this: If I have the Vista Recovery CD, am I safe to delete these partitions, and recreate them to my liking? They look like they would be part of a Recovery Partition, but they are already empty. If I change my partition layout, can I still just pop in the Recovery CD and let it install to factory settings?

 

[PC eye]

Once removed forget restoring anything back to factory defaults. The hidden partition(s) store the drivers/softwares that come preinstalled with the unit. Once you remove those you need to buy a full install copy of Windows and proceed to download any board and device drivers needed from that brand's support site since you are starting off with a totally new primary with no restoration files remaining.

 

[munkyeetr]

Once removed forget restoring anything back to factory defaults. The hidden partition(s) store the drivers/softwares that come preinstalled with the unit. Once you remove those you need to buy a full install copy of Windows and proceed to download any board and device drivers needed from that brand's support site since you are starting off with a totally new primary with no restoration files remaining.

Thanks for the input. I just want to be clear that the partitions appear to be completely empty. They show as 100% free inside Windows Disk Management.

Also, I have the Recovery CD's supplied by Toshiba with the unit. Do these not contain the OS and al the preloaded software?

 

[PC eye]

There's a certain degree of things like the installers on the disks themselves while the real stuff is hidden from normal view by design to prevent things like accidental deletion of anything needed to restore the laptop there and on desktops as well. If you change the view settings in the tools>folder options>view tab you can suddenly see the system volume information folder kind of shaded out at the root of C.

You can then also see the boot.ini in XP along with other protected system files. Likewise a methof of invisibility prevents loss of the files on the other partitions not meant for ready access. For installing XP on a primary where all VIsta files were removed besides the new boot folder you will find the same NTFS 5.0 type partition. You readily access a Vista primary with the exception of some folders while booting in XP.

With prebuilds you may even need more then one recovery disk since those are special ordered from Microsoft to see everything reinstalled. When you see disk #1 followed by recovery disk #2 the files for both Windows and the prepacked programs are spread over the disk set as well as having device/software drivers tucked away on the hidden partition.

Apparently the Windows portion of the recovery disks wasn't included if you can't find any of the Vista cab files or you have to follow the manual's instructions for pressing an assigned combination of keys to see the setup run from the recovery partition. Laptops will see that more then desktop models since they are portable units.