New HP Laptop with Recovery partition

[Alma J Wetzker]

Matthew Carpenter wrote:
> Hey all,
> 
> I have to say goodbye to the Toshiba QOSMIO G15. <sniff>
> I chatted over the holidays with my folks and it turns out that it's just what 
> they would like.  I have to say that it is hard to let it go...  That is one 
> beautiful machine... and the replacement system actually is paling in the 
> comparison... <sniff>
> 
> But, onward and downward.  The replacement box is a brand new HP Pavilion 
> dv6000t (another entertainment box... I couldn't resist)
> * 15.4" Wide-aspect LCD
> * Core Duo (Centrino)
> * Intel Wireless 394 / Bluetooth
> * NVidia GeForce Go 7400 (of course, I paid extra just for you Lonnie ;)
> * VGA/S-Vidio out
> * DVD+-RW-DL
> * 12-cell battery (most important ;)
> * 3 USB / 1 FireWire
> * Media slot
> * 1 not quite PCMCIA  "ExpressCard" slot (great, so nothing I own will work 
> anymore!)
> * Built-in DVD/Media viewer...
> 
> 
> But here's a weird part.  It comes with a great feature, a recovery partition, 
> so I don't even need DVD's to recover!!
> Except that the frickin' thing is 10GB in size.  Now I realize that megs are 
> cheap these days, but GIGs ain't <in the best drawl a Michigander can muster>
> 
> I've already gone through the initial "Create Recovery Discs" process (3 
> DVDs), and would like to free up that huge partition.  Before I do, however, 
> I wanted your collective opinions here.  Anyone have experiences with this?  
> Compaqs used to do their BIOS config on a separate partition and configuring 
> the machine was a serious pain if you wiped it... but you could reinstall it.
> 
> Should I *not* wipe it?  80GB isn't that big when you chunk out 15GB for 
> windows and 10GB for the stupid recovery partition (and it's full up at like 
> 9.76GB)

dd it to a backup drive, then wipe it.  A usb drive case plus and 80 (or
250) GB drive should not set you back too far.

    -- Alma