A 32.5 GB FAT16 partition?

[bizzybody]

Paragon Partition Manager 8.5 insists the main partition on my Acer Aspire 5315 laptop (with Home Basic) is not only not formatted but is FAT16 and 32.5 gigabytes. However, it can look inside it and show all the files.

The other two partitions are the 9.7 GB PQSERVICE partition and the D: partition, which it properly shows as Primary, not Active, and NTFS. It doesn't show the name of PQSERVICE. (Yet the settings dialog for Windows System Restore shows the PQSERVICE partition by name!)

Windows says the "unformatted" partition containing itself is NTFS.

What I'd like to do is delete PQSERVICE (I've made the recovery DVDs by connecting the DVD burner in my desktop via USB to IDE cable) and expand both NTFS partitions to 40 gig, keeping the 50/50 split.

What I don't know if the contents of C: will survive changing the partition type to NTFS and if the MBR will be altered to make everything work, or if the BIOS will leave it alone.

I already turned off Disk to Disk Recovery in BIOS and attempted to change the partition type of PQSERVICE with PTEDIT32 but after rebooting it either wasn't changed or the BIOS or Acer's MBR switched it back to 27. PTEDIT32 says that C: is FAT16B.

[jaclaz]

Since NTFS is 07 and Hidden NTFS is 17, it is probable that Acer "invented" a new partition type 27 based on NTFS.

With PTEDIT32 or beeblebrox, have a look at the bootsector on that partition, you should be able to see if the data appears "correct" when viewed as FAT16, FAT32 or NTFS.

Or use hdhacker to make a copy of both MBR and bootsector of that partition and post them in a .zip file, I would be curious to have a look at them.

jaclaz

Edited November 20, 2007 by jaclaz