Samsung series 9 resize recovery partition

[Wizzer1]

I bought a nice new Samsung Series 9 laptop - 11 inch with a 128 Gig SSD. Very snarky. Great screen

They take 20 Gigs of the 120 Gig drive for a recovery partition. A very poor choice on so small a drive. Plus then they use 30 Gigs more for Windows and their included features / bloatware. So there is only 70 Gigs left for programs and storage. Not the user experience that I think Samsung wants me to have. Enough of the rant.

How do I get rid of this or resize the 20 gig recovery partition? I don’t mind 1-200 Megs for a recovery partition and I think that I want the recovery feature, but 20 Gigs is way too much. I don’t mind having Windows on an external disk, but I don’t want it taking up a lot of valuable storage on the computer. I’ve got a lot of data to store on this machine.

 

[RealBeast]

If you mess with the Samsung recovery partition, you will not be able to reinstall your OS in the event of a problem -- there are files in there that are needed for the OEM reinstall. One downside to OEM Windows installs. And even worse, all of your bloatware is probably in their as installers.

If you had a retail copy of the OS DVD you would not need a recovery partition, only the 100mb system reserved partition.

Go through the Programs control panel and uninstall whatever you don't want and won't use.

 

[Wizzer1]

I there a way to take the files off the Samsung and store them somewhere else so I can use them if necessary without keeping 20 gigs tied up with stuff I probably will never use?

 

[Wizzer1]

I have the disk that came with the computer which has about 3.6 gigs fo files on it. Would that work?

 

[RealBeast]

I would see if you can get a full Pro disk from Samsung at a nominal fee, then you do not need the partition at all and can reclaim it.

 

[RealBeast]

I have the disk that came with the computer which has about 3.6 gigs fo files on it. Would that work?

Not unless it is a full installation disk, which doesn't usually come with OEM machines unless you pay extra.

 

[Wizzer1]

How about the drivers for touchpad, display, keyboard, etc?

 

[RealBeast]

You can download all of the device drivers that are required from SAMSUNG.

 

[bikeracer4487]

yeah, I'm in the same boat, having just bought a Series 9 myself. What's strange is that I had a Lenovo U300s for a while, and while it reserved about 20GB for the recovery partition, it only used 2GB, so I was able to resize it down to 5GB. Samsung is using up the full 20GB so there's no way to resize it, it's either keep it or delete it. Thankfully, I actually have a couple retail Windows DVD's lying around and a spare key or 2 if I need it. Does anyone know if an OEM Windows key will work with a retail disc?

 

[sabariel]

You can install a retail version of Windows 7 no problem. Only thing is, you'll lose Samsung's Quick Start feature, as that's only included in Samsung's version of Windows 7. Because it changes the entire way the system boots, it's not as simple as a program you could install afterwards. It needs to be Samsung's.

What you can do is create a disk image backup using Windows Backup (external hard drive). Then if anything happens, you just re-image the entire machine. I did this when I first bought the machine, so it would not have any additional software installed. Then I was able to remove the Samsung recovery partition.

 

[Wizzer1]

You can install a retail version of Windows 7 no problem. Only thing is, you'll lose Samsung's Quick Start feature, as that's only included in Samsung's version of Windows 7. Because it changes the entire way the system boots, it's not as simple as a program you could install afterwards. It needs to be Samsung's.

What you can do is create a disk image backup using Windows Backup (external hard drive). Then if anything happens, you just re-image the entire machine. I did this when I first bought the machine, so it would not have any additional software installed. Then I was able to remove the Samsung recovery partition.

Thanks. This sounds like it would work. However I sold the computer months ago. My wife got an Ipad since this wasn't working and was using that and the cloud for some extra storage. That worked fine for her so this wasn't needed and so we sold it.

 

[MDD101]

You can install a retail version of Windows 7 no problem. Only thing is, you'll lose Samsung's Quick Start feature, as that's only included in Samsung's version of Windows 7. Because it changes the entire way the system boots, it's not as simple as a program you could install afterwards. It needs to be Samsung's.

What you can do is create a disk image backup using Windows Backup (external hard drive). Then if anything happens, you just re-image the entire machine. I did this when I first bought the machine, so it would not have any additional software installed. Then I was able to remove the Samsung recovery partition.

I am no that computer savvy. Can you be more specific how you do this and how you change the recovery partition?
Thanks.

 

[Wizzer1]

I didn't do it. I sold the computer.

 

[sabariel]

I am no that computer savvy. Can you be more specific how you do this and how you change the recovery partition?
Thanks.

Get an external hard drive and run Window's Backup & Restore software. Do the "Create a System Image" method. If you ever need to restore it, just reboot and hit F8 until the black screen with options comes up. Select "System Repair" and get into the "Restore from System Image" option.

After you've tested your image recovery by actually restoring from it, you can remove the recovery partition. However, this is not recommended for someone who is "not that computer savvy" as you can really mess things up by playing around with partitions if you don't know what you're doing. If you're determined, Google can probably find you instructions to "Delete a partition in Windows 7" but I'm not about to explain it here.

 

[sabariel]

Update on Samsung's recovery disk:

After much trial and tribulation due to me owning a US-market computer in Canada, I finally got hold of a Samsung Recovery Disk. Fat lotta good that did me. It has a generic OEM version of Windows 7. Nice thing was that it has no bloatware, downside being that it also lacks the Fast Start feature that was the whole point of using it over a retail copy.

If anyone but me is concerned with Fast Start, I think Hybrid Sleep does basically the same thing (just set it to sleep when lid closed.) Only difference I can see is that Samsung's Fast Start starts up when the lid is opened and Hybrid Sleep requires the extra step of pushing the power button. Not a deal breaker.

It also lacked all the drivers, which isn't the end of the world since they can be downloaded from Samsung... but the nice thing about System Recovery is that everything works properly on startup.

To their credit, Samsung sent me the recovery disk free of charge. So props for customer service, but thumbs down for not having a Series 9 specific recovery disk. But since all the "useful" software is available for download, and only the Fast Start is missing, and this has a workaround, I think I'll make the switch.

 

[periss]

In the uper link you can see 4 partitions, why can i not delete the 2 partitions one 451 mb and other 378 not in disk manager, not in diskpart even if i format them??? Is this the recovery partition from win 8.1 i lately installed win 10 oem on my samsung series 9 np900x3d. Thanks for any help