How to remove / delete recovery partition after clean vista install

[willyhoops]

I have two sony laptops (the 10 inch screen palmtop and a 19 inch screen blue ray dvd one). Both came with Vista and crashed with "Windows Explorer has stopped working" when i tried to move / drag icons / items in a Classic mode Start menu. Doing a clean install has solved these problems but now i am left with Recovery partitions.

How can I get rid of these please? In Vista Computer Management / Disc Management it does not give me an option to delete the recovery partition on the right hand menu for that partition. I bought Partition Magic 8 but found it does not run under Vista. So what now please? Please don't restoring to the factory install as it has taken me many hours to get these laptops working properly with the clean install. Also since I have a clean install I no longer have the recovery program instaled.

I have looked on this forum but been unable to find the info. Many thanks...

[Thalamus.]

Also since I have a clean install I no longer have the recovery program instaled.

Hi willyhoops

Even thought you have a clean install of Vista, the recovery partition can still be accessed by pressing F10 when you see the Vaio logo on bootup, you can then complete the recovery process. If you remove the recovery partition be aware that if you have a CD/DVD drive problem or your recovery disc get lost or damaged, then you won't be able to use the recovery partition to restore your Vaio, ..

Here is Sony's official guide , there are also third party programs such as Paragon Partition Manager check that they are compatible with Vista first though..

[willyhoops]

Yes but I can't complete the recovery process becuase otherwise i will get all the junk applications that make it crash. The clean install is about exiting before the process ends after Vista goes on and before the apps gets installed. I just tried Paragon Partition Manager and now i have "missing operating system" on my Vaio UX. I got rid of the recovery partition and then when I tried to resize the main partition it rebooted, ran something for a few seconds and then came up with that. Nightmare. With only a 32Gb Flash drive on this palm top unit I really need to get the space the back. I have a retail copy of vista booting on the machine now from an external CD rom drive plugged into the USB so all is not lost but it's going to be a long long long job to get this working. When I look at the partitions in the Vista install they are exactly as before except Vista tells me the main system partition is too damaged and must be reformatted. Looks like Paragon software is as good as Sonys. Now this is going to be a long long job working from the retail copy and sony drivers on web.