Asus EeePC 1005PE netbook special partitions (restore and boot booster)

Question

I have an Asus EeePC 1005PE netbook and im planning on doing a massive re-partitioning (going to install Ubuntu, Mint, XP, etc)

Ive noticed it has 2 "special" partitions: a 10Gb Fat32 RESTORE hidden partition (used by BIOS "F9 recovery" feature) and a 16Mb "unknown" partition at the end of the drive (used by BIOS "Boot Booster" feature).

So, for both partitions, my question is:

• Can I move/resize the recovery partition freely?

• What are the requirements for it? (i mean, for it still be found by BIOS when i press F9/Activate BootBooster?). Partition table order? Partition type? Flags? Label? UUID?

• Can i make it a Logical (instead of primary) partition?

• Does it must be the flagged as boot?

And, more importantly: where can i find any official documentation about it? Ive ready many (mis)information about it... some say Boot Booster partition must be last (in partition table), some say Recovery must be 2nd, that it must be bootable, etc. How can I know what is really needed for the BIOS to use both F9 and Boot Booster?

Note: Im using gParted from a Live USB Stick (Mint 10 / Ubuntu 10.10), and ive noticed that, since the filesystem type of the Boot Booster is not recongnized, it cant move or resize it. Can I delete it and re-create it somewhere else? Whenever i create a 0xEF partition gParted crashes and quits and i cannot open it again (must delete the partition using fdisk / cfdisk)

Answer 1

Know this is an older post but pointed me in the right direction for understanding better the partitioning on an unmodified original 1005HA-PU17. It has OEM C: & D: drives, recovery partition and Boot Booster partition. All are functional. Another posting showed me how to unhide the hidden recovery partition to copy the restore files to the D:, the .WIM images files, etc. Then change the "type" back to OEM hidden, then rebooted, F9, recovery again operational. Took two snapshots showing additional info of the hidden partitions and uploading since this data is basically impossible to find.

Answer 2

Used to delete OEM partitions and reinstall only Windows on Eee PCs. You lose Express Gate and Boot Booster options in BIOS that way too. Undocumented online how to recreate a totally functional and restored EG_BB. They both live within the same partition. This does again put the two options back into BIOS. Have figured this out, tested, time to share:

Create Express Gate_Boot Booster from scratch

No special utilities need to be downloaded or installed. This can all be done within Windows 7 using the OS hard drive management programs.

Windows 7 Disk Management

Decrease existing C: drive volume for EG_BB partition creation with Shrink Volume option.

[note]: When selecting the # size ADD (1) more MB to size than needed. The extra MB will go to end unallocated and result in the correct partition size that ASUS uses.

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On 1015 series the OEM size is 21mb, select 22mb and get correct 21mb to use. On 1005 series the OEM size is 15mb, select 16mb and get correct 15mb to use.

For this new partition create a New Simple Volume. NO drive letter assigned, format as NTFS. After format remove the default New Volume label.

Manage new partition using Windows 7 Diskpart

Start Diskpart program. Select the drive, select the partition. detail partition. Change TYPE to EF. It will result as hidden, no drive letter assigned, EFI System partition, as ASUS does in their image.

Partition is now ready for the EG_BB software installation downloaded from ASUS site. Extract and install the software. Reboot, Go into BIOS and Enable EG_BB options in BIOS, save and exit. Let it boot up fully into Windows, then shut down PC. Press left EG button and software should load. Do the first initial setup screens, PC does a reboot then is now EG ready to run with any additional configs as needed.

Answer 3

This might help future askers of this question: I just installed Linux Mint13 on my 1005PE by removing only the Windows partition and replacing it with two primary partitions (swap and /) and putting the bootloader on the mbr (/dev/sda instead of /dev/sda1).

Didn't touch the Bootbooster or Recovery partitions and they both seem to work fine. No I didn't fully test, but I get to a recovery environment and working splashtop, so I think it's all good.

So my partition table looks like this, in physical order on disk:

TYPE    PARTITION FileSYS SIZE      MNTPoint (FLAGS)        (What's on it)
PRIMARY /dev/sda1 SWAP    1024MB                            Linux Swap
PRIMARY /dev/sda4 EXT4    221.91GiB /        (boot flag)    Linux Everything Else
PRIMARY /dev/sda2 FAT32   10GiB              (hidden flag)  Windows Recovery
PRIMARY /dev/sda3 unknown 18.89MiB                          Bootbooster?

The strange ordering is from just removing the original Windows partition. Yes, it's dirty and there's no reason why it couldn't have been a Logical partition with more extended segments.

Answer 4

I've found if i messed with ANYTHING, on any of the 3 eee pcs I have available, the backup fails. If you have the CD and can use that, feel free to wipe the partitions.

Boot boster can be turned off in bios, so i assume you can safely wipe that if you turn it off.