Help deleting service partition

I did forum search and only found "guide" for Vista. I'm running XP and need to delete 5.5GB SERVICE001 partition. I already made all the Recovery disks. Also, I'm not really sure if OEM keycode for OS needs to be backed up. The guide for Vista mentioned that hidden partition will contain that keycode. If so, how do I back it up? Or should I assume since I made Recovery disk those contain it already? Than, how do I copy it back after hidden partition is deleted? I’m pretty sure if keycode is not present, MS will not do any auto updates since OS will not be authorized.

Nevertheless, I need to gain back those 5GB and need your help how to go about deleting that partition. I searched for FDISK.exe and it not on hard drive (XP, SP3). Please let me know. Thanks!

 

Do you have XP Professional? If you do you should have something called disk administrator or something similiar. That should give you a graphical view of your partitions and you should be able to delete the partition you want.

Are you talking about the preactivated OEM activation code? I replaced my drive from Lenovo with a drive of my own(with no recover partition) and followed Orev's guide exactly. It worked perfectly, where I was running my Windows Vista with the preactivated OEM code rather than the one on the bottom of th emachine.

 

Yes, I do have XPP and did look into Administrative Tools -> Computer Management -> Disk Management. But I didn't have any options to delete the partition. I'm not in front of my laptop now, but will check when I get home if I was logged in as Administrator or User. Maybe that was a reason why no options showed up when I right-clicked SERVICE001 partition. BTW, that partition doesn't have any assigned letters; don't know if it makes any difference.

Regarding OEM activation code, I just assume since I back up everything on Recovery Disk it should be burned with back up if I need it. I have my own XPP OEM install from work, but its SP2 and I didn't want to do hdd format and than full install with all those painfully long SP3 updates. I cleaned up Lenovo's pre-installed XPP from all the junk and will keep it until receive my Win7 free update.

Hopefully I will be able to nuke that Service partition. Just have no idea how you guys are managing with those 32GB or even 80GB SSD drives I guess it all depends on your application use.

 

Still does NOT work I confirmed to be logged in as Adminstrator. I can see graphic representation of all hdd and hidden partition (SERVICE001, 5.52GB). But there are no options once I right click on it. It should have some menu to delete it, but its not there.

This is driving me crazy. Can anybody let me know how to delete hidden Service partition with XPP?

 

For anybody who wants to delete, add, resize, or do anything else HDD related - GParted is a must have FREE utility!!! http://gparted.sourceforge.net/

Just downloaded this Unix utility, burned it on CDR (can also do it on USB stick), boot up your laptop and within minutes I was able to delete hidden partition and than resize main partition to compensate for deleted chunk. Rebooted laptop and it’s all done. It’s completely independent of OS.

 

gparted is nice, and I use it with Linux, but I didn't suggest it to you since you have Windows and should have the ability to play with the partitions. Pretty strange that you weren't able to delete that partition, but you are ok now.