Strange Partitioning on new Laptop

sWiZzLe · 21 Feb 2007 at 10:35

I just bought an Acer Aspire 5050. It came with Vista Basic but i would like to set up a dual boot with it and XP as i have tried to install certain software and have come close on several occasions to making it unbootable.

So when I opened up Disk Management to see how the disk is partitioned I came across something wierd - wierd to me anyway:

Its partitioned into 3, the second is Vista, the 3rd is Data but the first is hidden:

It's 7.8gb and says EISA Configuration.

What is this? Do i need it? Is it something to do with Vista? :confused:

Thanks

sWiZzLe · 21 Feb 2007 at 11:32

No, strangely it didn't come with any disks. I had to make my own recovery dvd after it had unpacked everything. Is that normal :rolleyes:

Maybe i should back up this partition to my desktop or take a look at it in PM

It came with Vista, i have XP Pro somewhere.

sWiZzLe · 21 Feb 2007 at 14:26

Partition Magic?

sWiZzLe · 21 Feb 2007 at 16:56

Hmm,

When i turned on the laptop it was at the 'Windows is starting for the first time' bit. After setting it all up it went through this Acer eManagement thing, not sure what it was installing but it took ages. When it finished it asked me to make this 'Factory Default' disk, so i made 2

It took up about 3gb

If install XP, then use this DVD, will that install Vista?

I'll try to boot it when acronis finishes backing up Vista