AVS Now!

There was some confusion over the hidden partition for AVS Now.
I've had a play and started to figure it out a bit.

When I first read about AVS Now, I assumed it was part of the bios functionality and that the hidden partition was where AVS Premium dumped its dbs to allow easy access from AVS Now.
It is actually a tailored installation of "Windows XP Embedded". The partition is not assigned a drive letter by default and appears to be NTFS, although it has a different identifier for the filesystem.

Booting AVS Now! restores the Embedded XP installation from hibernation. If there isn't a hibernation state then it will prompt you that it needs to fix stuff (can't recall the exact message , and then go on to perofrm a full startup and subsequent hibernation.

If you happen to install another boot loader in the MBR, e.g. GNU grub, then you can boot AVS Now! by chaining. e.g. for Grub, simply copy your Windows entry in /etc/grub.conf and change the partition to (hd0,0).

alternatively, you should be able to chain NTLDR to run grub from a given partition rather than the MBR and AVS Now! should continue to function exactly as before.

The only thing I'm unsure of is how the bios indicates to the Windows bootloader (NTLDR) which OS it should run, and the Music/Photo/Movie mode (does it write to the MBR? Or set a flag in the NVRAM?).

 

Thanks. A useful clarification. So this is the partition which I can see and clone. But there is another hidden partition which swallows disk space, which I presume is the recovery software.

John

 

Yes, it is 'hidden' in Windows sense by setting the identifier to 0xFE instead of the regular NTFS one.

The other 'partition' swallowing space is the Recovery Now restore thing. This is actually a block range hidden by the BIOS. On my X60plus I have the option of removing it and disabling it. It actually misreports the size of the drive.
I haven't tried, but I imagine it actually resides at the end of the disk and you could disable it and then grow your Windows partition to occupy the space.
.

 

All I know is that (i) none of the software I have will see the true size of the disk; and (ii) cloning software such as Acronis MigrateEasy doesn't see and copy the other partition, so one gets extra space when cloning to another disk. I recall that a CD is supplied with the computer with the recovery software which should be installed on a new HDD before anything else (but I didn't do it). My Samsung) 160GB HDD is only 150GB after formatting, so I didn't want to lose more space.

John

 

I really doubt the RecoveryNow partition exists on a factory X60. I have installed it, and it created a NEW partition at the end of the drive. It was NOT the partition at the beginning of the dist, which is really the AVS Now installation. Which leads to the conclusion: the 100GB drive announced is in fact a 86GB. And the 120GB is only 10xGB.
Is this a valid statement for reclamation?

 

Nope, you're confusing the 'factory' Recovery Now partition, which is pre-setup by Samsung with all of the software, with a user snapshot.
Take a look in the BIOS (at least on the X60plus), there is an option to make the hidden partition visible.
My '100GB' model had a 101GB Windows partition, plus a 4GB AVS Now partition, plus claims to be hiding part of my drive in the BIOS.

 

Okay, I flipped the switch in the bios, and got a nice warning in red before the boot loader: "Samsung recovery area can now be deleted, please proceed with care"

However, I don't see any extra partitions or space. So now I'm confused.
My drive is reported as 107191MB in Partition Magic, which is still less than 120GB even taking into account the 1024^3/1000^3 difference.
Unless there is a bit lost for recovery from bad sectors etc.

Drive manufacturers do like to shaft us

 

Somewhere there's another thread a few months ago about HDD space but I recall that my brand new and empty 160GB HDD was reported as 150GB. In proportion, 120GB should be about 112.5GB.

John

PS: No trace of the switch in the BIOS of my old X60 (BIOS version 09XA). It seems that the X60-plus has a different BIOS.

 

I remember the switch in the BIOS for version 08XA. I have switched it several times and there was no extra space/partition becoming visible. And I really believe Linux. If it say it is only 86GB, then it IS only 86GB.