Does Vista use a Recovery Partition?
 

Long story short, I upgraded from Windows Media Center to Windows Vista Ultimate. My PC came with Media Center which by default had a FAT32 4GB partition used to recovery the OS if it went bad. My question is does Vista use the same recovery method? I formated the hard drive with Media Center on it before installing Vista, but the partition is still there. I don't know if its a part of Vista or old residue from Media Center. Anyone know if its safe to format and merge the little partition back into my main hard drive?

if still partition hidden try to use Norton PartitionMagic 8.0 to recovery it and will don't need to format it.

The recovery partition placed by OEMs would contain the original OS that was on the computer.

So basically, using the recovery partition would restore Windows XP Media Center Edition.

It's safe to remove, but you're fucked if you want to go back and use it at a later date, and you've removed it.

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Recovery (E: )
1.32 GB free of 4.37 GB
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The drive as its listed in My Computer on Windows Vista. Theres only one empty folder on the drive named System Restore. The partition doesn't have any hidden files but apparently something is taking up the space. I still have my Media Center Recovery DVD that came with my PC so I don't think I'll really need this partition if I wanted to revert back.

it safe if removed but backup first all data to other driver.than deleted and merge it with other driver.

50% of the time the dvd looks for the files on the recovery partition. Depends on the brand of computer. Delete the partition if you can make the commitment of never going back to XPMC.

Vista wont use something it didn't create.

Meaning, it wouldn't be able to use a recover partition if it didn't match the OS (as specified in a previous post.)

I'd keep it, unless you have an original -FULL- disc of the media center OS.

I know if it was a dell, you can safely remove it and still be able to restore using the dell restore discs..

Same with Gateway, to an extent.