What is the "EISA Partition" ???

~misfit~ wrote:
> Somewhere on teh intarwebs Barry Watzman wrote:
>> That is very interesting. [Hold down the zero key while booting; or
>> press F8]
>>
>> I am still inclined to think that the answer is wrong, only because I
>> still believe that a 1.46GB partition is too small to be a factory
>> restore partition for Vista, but I will give it a try.
>
> I am inclined to agree with you Barry. The "ServiceV001" FAT32 (EISA
> Configuration) hidden partition in this ThinkPad T60 is 4.54GB. It is an XP
> Pro preload (with a bunch of licenced time-limited stuff Lenovo are probably
> paid to include) *and* diagnostics partition.

Guess you meant "has probably been paid to include"!

snip


--
John Doue

Yes, I always admit that I am wrong once I realize that to be the case.
The files installed on the laptop (and I don't think that anything
major was added) totalled about 6GB; it's really tough to get 6GB's
worth of files from a 1.46GB restore partition. In fact, I am not sure
that you can restore either Vista Home Basic or Home Premium from a
1.46GB partition, it comes on a DVD and my recollection is that
installation files take up between 3 and 4GB (the backup is of course
image based, but there are about 6GB of files in the partition).

On the other hand, it's very possible that it is a diagnostic partition.


ggwillikers wrote:
> Barry Watzman wrote:
>> That is very interesting. [Hold down the zero key while booting; or
>> press F8]
>>
>> I am still inclined to think that the answer is wrong, only because I
>> still believe that a 1.46GB partition is too small to be a factory
>> restore partition for Vista, but I will give it a try.
>>
>>
> And if the poster is right, will you admit you're wrong????

Ok, mystery now completely solved (and I was not wrong)

First, pressing "0" doesn't do ANYTHING.

But I did find out what the "EISA" Partition on this particular computer
(Toshiba A135-S4457) is and at least one way of getting into it.

On this computer, the partition contains the Vista recovery environment;
more or less the same one you can get into by booting from the Vista
DVD. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows...ry_Environment

This environment is on every Vista DVD; and if you didn't get a DVD
(e.g. Vista was pre-installed), Microsoft has made an .ISO file that
creates it on a blank (bootable) DVD available for downloading. See:

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/wi...windows/?p=622

The environment on the Toshiba has been enhanced with some Toshiba
extensions. It doesn't, however, fill the 1.46GB partition. There is a
"Restore" function to fully restore the main Vista partition .... but
the restore function is just a way of starting/accessing the recovery
DVD that Toshiba shipped with the laptop. As I speculated, 1.46GB in
the "EISA" partition is too small (WAY too small) to actually hold the
recovery files. That would take more like 4 to 6 GB.

As to the other part of the question, why it's called an "EISA"
partition: This was answered previously, but back in the 1980's when
Compaq and Zenith were doing their own thing to compete with IBM's
then-new Micro-channel (MCA) architecture, they came up with the EISA
architecture, and part of that was a provision for putting configuration
information in a hidden, protected partition on the hard drive. This
partition was given a "partition type" of 12H (18 decimal) and called an
EISA partition. Currently, it has become common (although not
universal) practice now to use this partition type (12H/18D) for
manufacturer specific diagnostic / restore partitons, but various disk
software (including Computer Management / Disk Management in MS OS')
calls a partition with this type an "EISA" partition, notwithstanding
that both Micro-channel and EISA died two decades ago [the market
ignored both of them and stayed with the ISA bus (augmented, for a time,
by the Vesa VL bus) until PCI came along in about 1995]. But partitions
with that partition type still get tagged as an EISA partition by
various disk software.

Finally, all of this is manufacturer (and, at least potentially, model)
specific. So none of it necessarily applies to any manufacturer other
than Toshiba or, for that matter, to other models of Toshiba laptops.
It is definitely clear that at least some manufacturers create such a
partition and make it much larger than the 1.46GB on this Toshiba
laptop, and then proceed to put a full recovery capability (including
either an installation source or an image source) into that [much
larger] "EISA" partition. Toshiba, however, still ships actual recovery
media with almost all of their laptops.


Barry Watzman wrote:
> Yes, I always admit that I am wrong once I realize that to be the case.
> The files installed on the laptop (and I don't think that anything
> major was added) totalled about 6GB; it's really tough to get 6GB's
> worth of files from a 1.46GB restore partition. In fact, I am not sure
> that you can restore either Vista Home Basic or Home Premium from a
> 1.46GB partition, it comes on a DVD and my recollection is that
> installation files take up between 3 and 4GB (the backup is of course
> image based, but there are about 6GB of files in the partition).
>
> On the other hand, it's very possible that it is a diagnostic partition.
>
>
> ggwillikers wrote:
>> Barry Watzman wrote:
>>> That is very interesting. [Hold down the zero key while booting; or
>>> press F8]
>>>
>>> I am still inclined to think that the answer is wrong, only because I
>>> still believe that a 1.46GB partition is too small to be a factory
>>> restore partition for Vista, but I will give it a try.
>>>
>>>
>> And if the poster is right, will you admit you're wrong????

Somewhere on teh intarwebs John Doue wrote:
> ~misfit~ wrote:
>> Somewhere on teh intarwebs Barry Watzman wrote:
>>> That is very interesting. [Hold down the zero key while booting; or
>>> press F8]
>>>
>>> I am still inclined to think that the answer is wrong, only because
>>> I still believe that a 1.46GB partition is too small to be a factory
>>> restore partition for Vista, but I will give it a try.
>>
>> I am inclined to agree with you Barry. The "ServiceV001" FAT32 (EISA
>> Configuration) hidden partition in this ThinkPad T60 is 4.54GB. It
>> is an XP Pro preload (with a bunch of licenced time-limited stuff
>> Lenovo are probably paid to include) *and* diagnostics partition.
>
> Guess you meant "has probably been paid to include"!

Heh! Yeah, I tend to abbreviate things I write to newsgroups (unless it's
critical info) and sometimes it doesn't come out exactly as I meant it.

Oh, about the EISA partition on this ThinkPad T60; I believe that it
dynamically re-sizes itself as needed as the software included allows you to
backup not only your current OS 'state' (including patches and service packs
I believe) either to hard disk or to DVD-/+Rs but also offers a secure,
encrypted 'vault' for sensitive information. Currently disk management tells
me that there's 675MB free space on the 4.54GB partition.

Cheers,
--
Shaun.

"Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he'll
be warm for the rest of his life." Terry Pratchet, 'Jingo'.

Barry Watzman <> wrote in news:h2c083$9fi$1
@news.motzarella.org:

> On this computer, the partition contains the Vista recovery environment;
> more or less the same one you can get into by booting from the Vista
> DVD.
>
> The environment on the Toshiba has been enhanced with some Toshiba
> extensions. It doesn't, however, fill the 1.46GB partition. There is a
> "Restore" function to fully restore the main Vista partition .... but
> the restore function is just a way of starting/accessing the recovery
> DVD that Toshiba shipped with the laptop.


As I suggested back on June 23, and could have been confirmed with a simple
5 minute experiment:

"Given the size, my guess is it may be a FAT32 or NTFS partition that boots
to a WinPE-based repair or recovery environment (although the actual
recovery image or content may reside on CD or DVD)."

dg1261 wrote:
> Barry Watzman <> wrote in news:h2c083$9fi$1
> @news.motzarella.org:
>
>> On this computer, the partition contains the Vista recovery environment;
>> more or less the same one you can get into by booting from the Vista
>> DVD.
>>
>> The environment on the Toshiba has been enhanced with some Toshiba
>> extensions. It doesn't, however, fill the 1.46GB partition. There is a
>> "Restore" function to fully restore the main Vista partition .... but
>> the restore function is just a way of starting/accessing the recovery
>> DVD that Toshiba shipped with the laptop.
>
>
> As I suggested back on June 23, and could have been confirmed with a simple
> 5 minute experiment:
>
> "Given the size, my guess is it may be a FAT32 or NTFS partition that boots
> to a WinPE-based repair or recovery environment (although the actual
> recovery image or content may reside on CD or DVD)."
>
>
>
Like clapping with one hand i tell ya...

Barry Watzman wrote:
> As to the other part of the question, why it's called an "EISA"
> partition: This was answered previously, but back in the 1980's when
> Compaq and Zenith were doing their own thing to compete with IBM's
> then-new Micro-channel (MCA) architecture, they came up with the EISA
> architecture, and part of that was a provision for putting configuration
> information in a hidden, protected partition on the hard drive. This
> partition was given a "partition type" of 12H (18 decimal) and called an
> EISA partition. Currently, it has become common (although not
> universal) practice now to use this partition type (12H/18D) for
> manufacturer specific diagnostic / restore partitons, but various disk
> software (including Computer Management / Disk Management in MS OS')
> calls a partition with this type an "EISA" partition, notwithstanding
> that both Micro-channel and EISA died two decades ago [the market
> ignored both of them and stayed with the ISA bus (augmented, for a time,
> by the Vesa VL bus) until PCI came along in about 1995]. But partitions
> with that partition type still get tagged as an EISA partition by
> various disk software.

Why have you written the above to look like you were answering the question?

--
Adrian C

I was writing it to summarize concisely in a single post a couple dozen
other posts for the benefit of anyone that might ask the same question
in the future.

Is that ok? [I really don't care whether you think it is or not]

Adrian C wrote:
> Barry Watzman wrote:
>> As to the other part of the question, why it's called an "EISA"
>> partition: This was answered previously, but back in the 1980's when
>> Compaq and Zenith were doing their own thing to compete with IBM's
>> then-new Micro-channel (MCA) architecture, they came up with the EISA
>> architecture, and part of that was a provision for putting
>> configuration information in a hidden, protected partition on the hard
>> drive. This partition was given a "partition type" of 12H (18
>> decimal) and called an EISA partition. Currently, it has become
>> common (although not universal) practice now to use this partition
>> type (12H/18D) for manufacturer specific diagnostic / restore
>> partitons, but various disk software (including Computer Management /
>> Disk Management in MS OS') calls a partition with this type an "EISA"
>> partition, notwithstanding that both Micro-channel and EISA died two
>> decades ago [the market ignored both of them and stayed with the ISA
>> bus (augmented, for a time, by the Vesa VL bus) until PCI came along
>> in about 1995]. But partitions with that partition type still get
>> tagged as an EISA partition by various disk software.
>
> Why have you written the above to look like you were answering the
> question?
>

Barry Watzman wrote:
> I was writing it to summarize concisely in a single post a couple dozen
> other posts for the benefit of anyone that might ask the same question
> in the future.

Aw well, if that's what you are doing - just make it a bit more obvious!!

Incidently not many posters on usenet do that, and it throws people
following threads and working out who contributed what to the topic. In
the event that someone (maybe myself) has contributed something not
quite right, this summary of words *unchecked* compounds errors and may
mislead others - or extend the thread in pointless arguments and
off-topic discussion AKA noise.

>
> Is that ok? [I really don't care whether you think it is or not]

Wanna write a wiki for the group?

:-)

--
Adrian C