Asus Zenbook Prime SSD Partitions - How to delete and expand?

[bellyer]

Good Afternoon Folks,

I have spent the last couple of days playing around with my new Asus Zenbook Prime (UX31A-DB51). Being that it only has a 128 GB SSD in it, I would like to delete the 10 GB recovery partition (already made a backup ISO using Asus's included AI Recovery software) and expand my main C: partition to take back that 10 GB. There is also a 4 GB Parition on the drive, but I do not know what that is for. Listed below are the four partitions my drive is broken into and the descriptions provided for them in the Disk Management tool.

1) 200 MB - Healthy (EFI System Partition)
2) OS C: 104.92 GB NTFS - Healthy (Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Primary Partition)
3) 4.00 GB - Healthy (Primary Partition)
4) 10.00 GB Healthy (Recovery Partition)

I have used the Disk Management tool on previous Windows 7 PCs to delete/shrink/expand partitions, but this one is confusing me.

First, does anyone know what that third partition above would be for and if I can delete it to absorb into my main OS C: partition?

Second, the 10.00 GB Recovery Partition does not give me the option to delete/shrink/expand the partition at all? When I right-click on the partition, all it does is popup a Help link.

Any help on this would be very much appreciated. After loading on the essential apps for us (Photoshop Elements 10, Zune, Office Pro 2010, Microsoft Security Essentials, and a few other small apps), We are down to about 60 GB of space remaining, so if there is a way to take back that 10-14 GB, it would come in handy.

Thanks for any help anyone can offer me!
Bellyer

 

[nhasian]

I recommend using Clonezilla to create an image of your entire hard disk. that way it will be easy to restore the entire drive or individual partitions in the future if you like.

 

[Sgallian]

Hello all.
I would be glad to know also what this 4gb partition is as well:
My SSD is a 256gb, but I would like to create another partition in order to install another (small) OS on my UX31A...
I must say that I am more than a little confused by EFI mode and GUID dynamic disk...

So I hope that I could expand and use this 4gb partition if it is not used, but then would the disk still be compatible with the recovery mode?

I asked the question to asus support, waiting for the answer...

 

[bellyer]

Sgallian - Please share anything that you hear back from Asus on this. While the 4GB partition is the lesser of the two that I am interested in pulling into my main C: partition, I am certainly interested in incorporating it into my total storage space, if possible.

I am still hoping that someone here might be able to help me figure out how to pull that 10GB recovery partition over to the C: partition, so that I can use that space. If anyone has any tips, I would really appreciate it.

 

[Sgallian]

Hello Bellyer.
Well, I tried the French and Global support of Asus, and all I got until now was some prefab answers that would not answer to the question...

But I found 2 clues as to what this 4gb is used for:

http://www.itreviews.com/hardware/laptops-and-notebook-pcs/asus-zenbook-ux21-and-ux31-first-look/instant-on-battery-life-connections-and-verdict/

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/659073-ivy-bridge-zenbook-fhd-ips-screen-ux21a-ux31a-ux32a-ux32vd-152.html

It is apparently used for the Instant On feature...

 

[dodger46]

Sgallian - Please share anything that you hear back from Asus on this. While the 4GB partition is the lesser of the two that I am interested in pulling into my main C: partition, I am certainly interested in incorporating it into my total storage space, if possible.

I am still hoping that someone here might be able to help me figure out how to pull that 10GB recovery partition over to the C: partition, so that I can use that space. If anyone has any tips, I would really appreciate it.

If you find superfluous partitions and want to control them, you might well find Easeus Partition Manager better able to do the job. It's free.
http://download.cnet.com/EaseUS-Partition-Master-Home-Edition/3000-2248_4-10863346.html

 

[SmoothTrickle]

bellyer

I have the Zenbook UX31 as well, but when I upgraded to Windows 8 I deleted the recovery partition. I neglected to make a copy of it prior to the upgrade so now I get the "Recovery Not Found" error every time I reboot the machine. Is there any way I can get your copy in order to reinstall?

Good Afternoon Folks,

I have spent the last couple of days playing around with my new Asus Zenbook Prime (UX31A-DB51). Being that it only has a 128 GB SSD in it, I would like to delete the 10 GB recovery partition (already made a backup ISO using Asus's included AI Recovery software) and expand my main C: partition to take back that 10 GB. There is also a 4 GB Parition on the drive, but I do not know what that is for. Listed below are the four partitions my drive is broken into and the descriptions provided for them in the Disk Management tool.

1) 200 MB - Healthy (EFI System Partition)
2) OS C: 104.92 GB NTFS - Healthy (Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Primary Partition)
3) 4.00 GB - Healthy (Primary Partition)
4) 10.00 GB Healthy (Recovery Partition)

I have used the Disk Management tool on previous Windows 7 PCs to delete/shrink/expand partitions, but this one is confusing me.

First, does anyone know what that third partition above would be for and if I can delete it to absorb into my main OS C: partition?

Second, the 10.00 GB Recovery Partition does not give me the option to delete/shrink/expand the partition at all? When I right-click on the partition, all it does is popup a Help link.

Any help on this would be very much appreciated. After loading on the essential apps for us (Photoshop Elements 10, Zune, Office Pro 2010, Microsoft Security Essentials, and a few other small apps), We are down to about 60 GB of space remaining, so if there is a way to take back that 10-14 GB, it would come in handy.

Thanks for any help anyone can offer me!
Bellyer