HELP for partition & clean install

I've just bought an Asus N55 and I want to do a clean install of Windows 7, but I have some doubts about the partition the notebook came with.

Even if it's in italian, I think you can understand the meaning



The C partition is the one where it's installed W7 and all the programs.
The D partition is visible as a physical drive and i can write on it (I guess it is a simple partition for storage)
The last partition, since it's called "recovery filesmm" and it's almost full, i guess it is the recovery partition, which i won't touch even if I had made the 5 recovery discs.
BUT, the first partition what the hell it is?! It's full empty and invisibile.

For a clean install, I was thinking to erase the C, D and the "unknown" partition and not to touch the "recovery filesmm" partition.

Is it correct or the first empty partition of 25GB can be useful and i don't have to touch or erase it?

THanks and sorry for my english!

 

The first partition is the recovery partition in case you need to reload the software and OS from the factory state. You can run ai burner and create a dvd set, or you can copy that raw partition into an image file and then copy that image directly onto a USB stick if you don't want to use the space.

 

I already made the dvd set for recovery. The question is: why is the first partition empty? Doesn't the recovery partition contains all the file needed for recovery? Or the two partition (25GB + 20GB) are both needed for recovery?
It sounds strange, almost 50GB?..

 

The first partition is hidden so you can't see its files, it's not empty.

You can see it if you use a partition utility or linux.

 

Ok, I can't see the partition in "Computer", but with this utility i can see it's empty! And the other partition "recovery filesmm" what's that? It's hidden and I can see that's almost full..

Which one i don't have to erase to have recovery on my disk? I have already the dvd recovery, but i want to have it on the HDD.

 

I don't know about the last partition.

The recovery partition has always been at the start of the disk and is set to 'hidden'. It's always FAT.

Since the last partition is not hidden and is NTFS, assign it a drive letter and look to see what files are there.

 

Ok, done.
There is only one big file, 16,7GB, called "windows 7 home 64.tib"..

 

That's an acronis image, it's essentially a full disk backup.

It's probably another backup image, but it's not from the factory. It could either be from a previous owner or a retailer.

You can copy that acronis image file onto another disk if you want to keep it, and then wipe out the partition. You would need an acronis boot cd to use the image to recover.

 

Ok, so I guess the store where i bought the notebook made it.

So, I'll copy the tib file, and wipe THAT partition and the other C and D, not touching the first, right? I hope nothing will go wrong, i'm used to do it but on my desktop PC

 

Yeah, exactly. You will have multiple recovery options if you copy that acronis image file, have made backups, and leave the first partition intact. You can do whatever you want to the rest of the disk for your clean install.