Sunday, January 6, 2008

Delete and Remove EISA configuration on a laptop (ACER)

Delete and Remove EISA configuration partition on a laptop computer (ACER, Vista)

Why?

Because it takes up over 9GB of space and I can just do a system recovery from DVD if my system is messed up so the EISA configuration doesn't serve much of a purpose. Although ACER doesn't provide a recovery DVD anymore, you can burn one yourself.

The EISA partition resides on a dynamic disk and there is no drive letter associated with it. When you click on the EISA partition, all you get is the Help command. You can't format, explore, shrink volume, expand volume, etc.

I can't believe I am writing a guide. This is my first time, but there isn't one out there. (or a good one I can find) I am going to follow my own directions and hopefully this will be helpful to other people too.

How?

To delete the Extended Industry Standard Architecture (EISA) partition on Windows Vista:

1. Create a ACER system restore or back up DVD disc. Start->Acer eRecovery Managment-> Burn Disc-> click on factory default disc (one of the other options).-> click next to burn the DVDs.

2. Transfer your documents and files from your laptop to a external hard drive or copy on to DVD.

3A. I think you can use PartitionMagic or BootitNG to remove it. Using PartitionMagic is pretty easy to do. Another option is to put in the windows install DVD and restart the computer. Hit F12 to boot from DVD. Delete the EISA partition. "When you get to the partition selection screen you will see the NTFS partition, but not the hidden EISA one. Hit Shift-F10, run diskpart from the command prompt right there, exit the command prompt and hit Refresh." (link). I haven't tried these ways.

Or you can use the diskpart command.

3B. Start-> Type "diskpart."-> type "list disk" -> type "select disk n" (n is the disk you chose, probably 0)-> type "list partition"-> type "select partition n" -> type "delete partition"-> type "delete partition override"

4. Then I should have extended the C: partition to take up the space of the newly unallocated space. I didn't, but you should if you don't want three partitions!



5. Restart computer.



However, I didn't do Step 4, but instead restarted my computer. My C: became system and EISA partition so I couldn't extend it anymore. I didn't want to have three partitions and the main one be EISA so I reformatted my computer (Step 3a, boot from a CD). Then wiped out the hard drive and installed the recovery DVD I made and I got everything on one partition.

This took several hours and it's not as easy as it seemed. One more note is that there's no way to get the Acer eRecovery Management program back once you delete the EISA.

-----------------------------------------
For Start Up Program Reference:

http://www.sysinfo.org/startuplist.php

27 comments:

Connor McBrine-Ellis said...

interesting post, i recently acquired an EISA after restoring my system, as with you, I've got the recovery dvds.

Connor McBrine-Ellis said...

interesting post, i recently acquired an EISA after restoring my system, as with you, I've got the recovery dvds.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the tip, I just googled upon this and I have the same situation for a desktop though. I've already got rid of my D partition and just have my C but I had to reset all my drive letters so they would be in sequential order. I'll go ahead and get rid of the 9 gig footprint that remains in my way this way but if it requires a format I might as well wait 2-3+ months when its time to format Vista anyways to do so.

Anonymous said...

one quick question..
Is step 2 necessary / compulsory ?

Anonymous said...

awesome tip, thanks so much
that solved my problem with the EISA thing that was taking up partition space on an old laptop drive I salvaged.

Anonymous said...

thanks for this. It really helps. Once again. Thank you.

Anonymous said...

Hi there,
I followed the instruction here and managed to get rid of the EISA drive, but the EISA shifted to the C drive. I again did the diskpart on c drive. Now I am in a terrible mess. (this is where I went wrong)
My lappy wont boot from my restore disks, telling me it restore has failed (made 2 sets to be sure) and neither will work.
It wont format from WIN XP disk or can I fdisk from a USB FDD. I am just left with a black screen with a flashing curser.
I guess I have lost my HDD and will have to purchase another.
Any help/advise would be much appreciated

Anonymous said...

Hello again,

Well I have got a bit further on, I booted from a Vista disc and was greeted with a number of options.
1. Startup Repair
2. System restore
3. Windows complete PC restore
4. Windows memory diagnostic tool
5. Command prompt.

I went into command prompt and did a diskpart where upon I can see I drive which is listed as "disk 0" status in online the size is 75gig and free is 33gb. I dont know DOS and wonder what I can do next to get this partition up and running, perhaps even do a new and complete install if it would let me.

Any advice from some one with any knowledge would be much appreciated.

Kind regards

Taige Zhang said...

wow. I didn't realize my post got so popular :)

it was my first guide and i just wrote as i tinkered. I kinda forgot exactly what I did but I'll try to get back to you carol66 soon.

Taige Zhang said...

oh carol66 i don't think eisa files shifted to C drive only the name was assigned to C. so don't worry about that.

and steps 1&2 are not required only if you want to back up your files.

Anonymous said...

I had a similar but simpler problem. I had replaced the hard drive in my Acer with a 160 GB and wanted to format completely the original 80 GB to use in an external portable enclosure as a spare drive. Got rid of the C and D partitions no sweat but had no idea how to get rid of the EISA partition till I read your blog. Thanks a million. It works as smooth as silk.

Anonymous said...

thanks so much.. i got my hard drive space (17GB) back..

Anonymous said...

You're the best for this post. It made my work 100 times easier. I appreciate your time and efforts for putting up this solution.
Cheers

Brandon said...

3B. Start-> Type "diskpart."-> type "list disk" -> type "select disk n" (n is the disk you chose, probably 0)-> type "list partition"-> type "select partition n" -> type "delete partition"-> type "delete partition override"

Thank You For That!

Anonymous said...

there are in fact 4 partitions on the acer system :)

Anonymous said...

Taige, thanks for this write up.

Pls can some one help me.I formatted my emachine lappy HDD and the installation will always hang or better put freeze at completing installation stage. I have loaded vista with another laptop but it will show blue screen when i boot it in my lappy,

Pls can some on help me from this mess

Unknown said...

Thanks a million dude!

Anonymous said...

Thanks heaps!

Sent my Linux laptop away for repairs and it came back running Vista, crazy service people! Thought I'd keep it on a small partition just in case it came in handy one day, but wanted to get rid of that pointless EISA partition, couldn't care less if I lose Vista. Your instructions worked perfectly.

Taige Zhang said...

Thanks for your nice comments. I just realized this is like really highly ranked by google when I searched for eisa configuration today. Very cool.

http://intelligentshare.com/2009/06/my-most-useful-post.html

Anonymous said...

thanks for this. It really helps. Thank you

Unknown said...

*SNIP*
Although ACER doesn't provide a recovery DVD anymore, you can burn one yourself.
*SNIP*

ummm, I called ACER and asked them for recovery/system cds for the system I just bought from Newegg, and they sent them asap.

:0)

Anonymous said...

I have just had a bit of a nightmare with removing a EISA partition from an Acer laptop.

Eventually I solved it by installing the latest edition of Ubuntu (which formatted the entire drive for me), then reinstalled Vista.

I hope this comes in handy to someone else.

Unknown said...

Thank you for taking the time to post the info ,worked very well and fast.
Can't be easier !Very good explanation.

Delton said...

Thanks a Million Taige. The tip worked liked a charm...

Unknown said...

Very interesting! Does anyone have a clue how "EISA configuration" related disk usage could possibly need 9 GB!?! And why ACER thinks it is worth devoting that much to an obsolete bus standard?

Anonymous said...

Very useful post. Thanks a lot for jotting these steps down. I used the Diskpart commands to get rid of my AISA partition on an old hard drive I wanted to get rid of. I connected the disk via USB to SATA cable and was able to delete the Acer AISA partition.

Anonymous said...

I am considering to install WinPE on system reserved partition without removing EISA partition on Acer laptop, even if the recovery DVD made by Acer eRecovery.

diskpart
sel disk 0
clean
create partition primary size=200
format fs=ntfs quick
create partition primary size=30000
format fs=ntfs quick
..

I'm not sure that "clean" whether it will remove EISA partition or not? Please advise.

Thank you.