The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    weird PQService partition

    Discussion in 'Acer' started by pavelh, Feb 9, 2005.

  1. pavelh

    pavelh Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    2
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Hi!
    I've just bought an Aspire 1413. I don't want to use Acer's pre-installed OS so I started at partitioning my HD and discovered something totally new to me - a small, 2.93GB partition called PQSERVICE that is very hard (but not impossible) to get rid of. My more experienced friend tells me it is very useful for hybernating and suspending the system and also critical for saving memory when the battery runs out and the system goes to 0V Suspend Mode. Is it really that useful? Can't I go on without it? I mean there are some energey saving featured withing Windows XP - the OS should be able to suspend on battery low all on its own, shouldn't it?

    My basic Q is: is this partition critical for me or not?

    Many thanks for any kind help!!

    Pavel
     
    pavelh, Feb 9, 2005
    #1
  2. tb2496

    tb2496 Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    16
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    that partition is for restoring/reinstalling your system, same as those restore cd's you got from acer. Its not needed to run windows. make sure you think twice before deleting it though as you cant bring it back...

    as someone else here found out the hard way. [ :D]
     
    tb2496, Feb 9, 2005
    #2
  3. pavelh

    pavelh Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    2
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Thanks for your reply!!

    It's good news. If it is only used to restore the system I won't need it.

    I have repartitioned the HD already, but I should be able to restore it if a need be. I used Acronis True Image (I may highly recommend it) to create an image of the whole drive before repartitioning.

    If anybody else has more info on the partition in question, please let me know :)

    Pavel
     
    pavelh, Feb 9, 2005
    #3
  4. bmhome1

    bmhome1 Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    2
    Messages:
    113
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    My PQSERVICE partition on my Acer 303 is exactly 2GB, formatted as FAT16 (according to Partition Magic) and has a bunch of small applications that appears to be a variation of DOS-based older Norton's Ghost. Yet #1 of the recovery CD set boots from a trimmed-down Ghost application (complete with a Ghost logo) first and then installs XP from the remaining CD's.

    The PQSERVICE partition seems redundant, unless its there for performing a rescue restore without the CD's at hand. A backup hard drive with just XP installed without it works fine. Using PartitionMagic a copy of that partition can be made if desired before removing.

    Being formatted as FAT16, there's no way XP uses it ever for anything OS or virtual memory related.

    I personally recommend Acronis TrueImage to make a compressed image of XP after all application software is installed and burn that to a DVD. A portable copy of the bootable CD image and the DVD could restore your full XP OS quickly if ever needed. Incremental backup update additions can be burned to another CD.
     
    bmhome1, Feb 9, 2005
    #4