Category: Geeks r Us
Hey all,
I just got a new Tosheba laptop, but I wanted to copy it's recovery partiton off the main disc. The only problem is this partition is hidden, so windows can't see the files. Any tips on how to get access to it?
Hi,
This really depends on exactly why you're wanting to copy it. If you're just after the data, assuming that Windows understands the file system, you should just be able to give it a drive letter under Disk Management & copy paste the contents to a different destination.
Failing that, you may find that you can assign it a letter but Windows says that the drive needs to be formatted - hopefully it goes without saying that you shouldn't do this. In this instanse, you may be able to use something like WinDD to image the partition to another drive, but I'm not sure if WinDD is file system independant or not.
Lastly, if none of the above work, boot to your favorite Linux distribution and just use DD to image it that way.
You should however give some serious thought to scrapping the partition all together as recovery partitions generally contain very out of date versions of software & drivers, not to mention all the crapware that is usually preloded on computers. Recent community driven projects such as Bryan Smarts talking PE have made it extremely easy for blind people to reinstall their operating system, even if some of us have been doing it for a while using answer files.
If you are worried about voiding your warranty by removing the partition, you should consider what would happen if a laptop arrived with a defective hard drive - companies aren't going to pay for the drive to be fixed just to see if you've deleted a partition or not. Not advicating you doing anything underhand here; just telling you the facts.
Cheers.
Hi b3n,
Regarding talking PE, I believe that it only works for 32 bit systems. Brian was unable to get it to work for 64 bit systems, unless I'm mistaken. Winstaller is overly expensive for what it does. But it does work on 64 bit systems.
Hi,
It works on 64 bit systems and you can install x64 Windows 7 using it but I think he had to modify the installer slightly to get it to work. Still pretty close to a clean install though; no cracks or modified files as is the case with iso's that have been acquired using alternate methods. Unfortunately you can't install 8 or 8.1 using it though.
Hi b3n,
Thanks for the response and update for the Windows 7 talking installer. Does the installer work if we're able to get something like RT7Lite to be accessible and use it to remaster our own legal copies of Windows?
I'll explain. RT7Lite is the successor toNLite for XP or VLite for Vista.
Unlike XPLite which modified Windows after install, RT7Lite does the modifications such as component removal, services configs etc before the install is even done saving precious hard drive space.
Hi,
I'm not sure to be honest. Essentially he's made a disk that boots into PE that contains a couple of utilities and NVDA. If you use his Mega ISO you also get a selection of Windows 7 images. NB: his batch script to start the Windows 7 install may not work correctly as some drive letters in it are hard coded.
If RT7 outputs an ISO that contains a setup.exe that you can run from within Windows then it should work. If said setup is for a 64 bit version of Windows then I'm not sure what will happen as I don't know how he overcame the 64 bit problem.
Hope you're doing well.
Cheers.
Hi,
Thanks for your reply. I've also seen another project called pennvda. I believe it burns an iso with NVDA for its setup.
http://blog.bryansmart.com/2013/09/26/talking-windows-pre-installation-environment-background-and-limitations/
I'll see if I can wing it and get RT7Lite to be accessible since I've heard its not even with .net 4.5.1 installed. Thank god I've got another laptop I can play with even though its 32 bit.
Where can I get a copy of this talking installer that was mentioned?
Hi battle star queen,
You can get a copy of the Windows NVDA installer mentioned above at the link I posted.