Category: How-to

Disaster preparation — 103 Hidden Partition

Paul

What is an OEM?

Many laptops or Desktops now a days have this hidden partition that is used for OEMS.  An OEM or original equipment manufacturer for those who don’t know is a company that sells a system with it’s own branding or services.  It varies from company to company just what they sell to the consumer.   Having Said that, let’s talk about this Hidden Partition.

Why do I have a Hidden Partition on my drive?

[ad]To simply put it, most likely it is there for a emergency backup for your Operating System.   It can be accessed through your boot up.  Most of the time if you press f11 or f12, some key combination to go to this hidden partition and restore the system to the  factory settings.   Now I tell you this to warn you that you don’t ever want to delete this partition because you need it to verify that in case you need a driver it might be there.     Now a days, most laptop and desktop sellers don’t want to include a backup CD or DVD in the box so they expect you do make one.   This is where the hidden partition comes to play.   This also used to make DVD or CD of operating system.

How big is the Partition?

That isn’t a simple question because most OEM’s like to vary partition to prevent them from being used in other OEM systems.   Now not saying it is hard to find out.  There are several tools used to backup this hidden partition but can cost to get to it.  Like my system, it takes up around 8 gigabytes of space on mine.   Others, I’ve seen, only take up 4 gigabytes.   It varies from branding to branding.   Also keep in mind that you want to backup this important partition just in case there is a problem with the Hard Drive.   This is really IMPORTANT: the Hidden Partition is only good for the hardware you have right now so it can only be used with that particular system.   Should you try it on another system, may have trouble or not work at all.

How do I back up this Hidden Partition or Even transfer it to another Hard drive?

If you wanted to change out your old laptop or desktop hard drive and put in a bigger and better hard drive.  You’d need to copy the old partition of the drive first to put in the new drive.    How do you do that?   Most laptops only have room for one Hard Drive so you might need to buy a cable for that laptop.   It’s call a USB to Sata Adapter and it allows you to hook up a second hard drive so you can copy from the original source.   This one I am showing you is good for both Laptop and Desktop it’s got all you need to make a back up or even copy the data off.

What software do I need to copy this Hidden partition?

There are several programs that will help you do this.   Each of them have there own look and feel to them.   These companies will support people who are wanting to backup there important Operating system.   Yes the operating system is important if you didn’t have that the hardware would just sit there.   Although there are free operating systems they do come with there own problems and solutions.  So let’s begin talking about the commercial backup software:

  • Acronis True Image — Backup your entire PC: Acronis True Image includes our patented disk-imaging backup technology. You can copy your entire PC, including the operating system, applications, user settings, and all data. In the event of a system or disk crash, virus attack, or other fatal failures, you can restore the entire disk contents in minutes–no reinstallations required!

  • Norton Ghost 14.0 — Protects your computer with advanced backup and recovery: creates full system and file backups, restore from system failures, and back up based on schedules and events

  • Paragon Partition Manager 9.0 Personal — Partitioning, Manage disk partitions, Optimization and Defragmentation, Boot Manager, and Simple Backup Wizard

[ad#ad2-right]I will add more to my store when I find others that work well with doing the hidden partition.   You will also not that these are are the best to use when you want copy the hidden partition because they know about the hidden partition.  Other software might only copy the visible partition and ignore the hidden.  So that is why I talk about commercial software because there’s a person on the other end who could help you out.

These are just a few that will work for you, if you want to go find the free software by all means but I must warn you the free software doesn’t come with any warranties or someone who could help most of the time.  It is a pot shot with free software, some work well and others just make a mess.  There are some free back up software but most of the time they only copy the visible and not the hidden, so if you must go looking.  Go looking for the ones who say they can copy the hidden partition.   These are the ones you need use to back up your operating system.

Fix Shutdown Problems in Vista!

Paul

[ad]
In the Patch Tuesday update, Microsoft quietly released the patch to fix Windows Vista machine shut problems. This patch should of came sooner.

KB957388

Update for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista

Install this update to resolve a set of known application compatibility issues with Windows Server 2008. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer.

This was not a critical update and it seems to resolve so many issues with compatibility.  One thing it seemed to fix on my system has been the shutdown time.  It is now quite fast, it would normally take me 2 to 3 mins to shutdown, now it does it in less than a Minute.   So if you’ve not installed this update please install it soon.   I would like to know if people are seeing the same thing I am.   I’ve found a great resource on fixing it if you are still having problem, it talks about how to check your system performance. Although this is been doing it lately with these programs not loaded or even running, they still seem to cause problems so now I get the feeling it has to do with legacy programs.  This should fix most of the problem with older programs.

Are you patched, Secunia Says NO

Paul

Secunia BlogThink you’ve got nothing to worry about, according to Secunia 98% of computers are not fully patched and are vulnerable to some kinda of attack. [ad#digg-right]So I wanted to talk about this a little and give you a few good ways to make sure you are patched.  There are several ways to get your system up to almost 100%.

[ad#ad2-left]Some things to do is make sure you have your Windows systems updated.  This is easy to make sure, if you have an internet connection you can just check for updates.  If you don’t know how to do it, it is quite simple, Just go here.    If you have Windows Vista all you have to do is hit Start and type in the search box “Windows Update” and hit Enter and you will be taken to the update page.


If you have a system that is off of the Net you could use the Clone of Autopatcher Program to do it for you.   You also need to update all your secondary programs such as Audacity, Open Office, and other programs that you use weekly.

[ad#ad2-right]If you don’t know what you need to update sometimes just having a program check for you can make a really good difference.   The one that I like to use is Appsnap and it actually searches you computer to see what might need to be updated.   I also suggest for the final suggestion is check out my Anti-Virus and Anit-Spyware Resources and make sure you have a firewall and anti-virus software.  This will greatly reduce your chances of getting a virus but that isn’t all you have to be careful on what you click on read this article on Some Important programs to prevent yourself from having viruses and Malware!! Read that carefully to better understand how you can protect yourself in the future.

GTA 4 Causes fatal error mma10, how to fix it!!

Paul

[ad#ad2-left]After seeing all this happened I thought I would help people out on how to fix it.   This seems to be a DRM problem according to some reports.  Others are thinking it is the Securerom.  Anyways the problem seems to be with the Rockstar Social Club and not to log in to that.  That will fix the problem, you will at least be able to play the single player game.  This is a temporary fix till the developers fix in the update.  This will also fix the Steam version of the game.