[mdlug] T61 Thinkpad Recovery Partition

[Peter Bart]

Hello Everyone,
I just got my new (factory refurb) Thinkpad T61 and I allready have
problems. <sigh> It seems the new machines come with a hidden partition
that has a factory image on it that you can then use to reload the
original os. There are lots of how to's regarding leaving that
functionality in place and still have Linux work. I would like to
reclaim that space; 7GB in this case; to use. 
	Not knowing any of this, I loaded openSUSE 10.3 not really paying any
attention to the amount of disk space available. I simply partitioned
the available space, more than I've ever had. When it came time to boot
into the fresh install I got a "operating system not found". So I found
I hosed my rescue image; no big deal; but I still had a hidden partition
as well.
	I've gotten into the rescue system using openSUSE 10.3 dvd. I found the
disk label using fdisk -l, then ran fdisk /dev/sda. I deleted all
partitions from there with d, verified that with p which reports a 100GB
disk. Then used w to save and exit. Then I started the openSUSE install
again but when it came to the partitioning I still saw only 93GB
available.  I went back in with the rescue system to verify that I
indeed had saved the changes to the table and I saw a 100GB hd. Okay, so
then I found out about the hidden part. So I read more about GRUB and I
can unhide what is still hidden but I need to know what it's called.
That's where I am right now. I can't seem to get any further. I can't
seem to figure out how to find out what this hidden ?partition? is
called to unhide it so I can delete it. 
	I allready have XP disks on the way from Lenovo so I can then load it
into VMWare, and I still have XP disks and valid COA's from my other
boxes. I would really rather have the space! Any idea's?

Best Regards,
-- 
Peter Bart <peter at petertheplumber.net>
http://petertheplumber.net