unknown files

Hi everyone,

I was just looking around my computer and i just noticed in one of the partitions that there's a folder called DATA>EN> and the EN folder is filled with a 43 files exactly 48,768 KB and their names go like this FACTORY.002, FACTORY.003, FACTORY.004, FACTORY.005...etc. and then there's another folder called CPWDRV which is about 1.04 GB big. I have no clue what these files are and they're taking way too much space in my HD. I wanna know if its safe to delete this files or not. Thank you for your time :D

I'm not really sure about this one but I have heard that some companies, instead of giving you a Cd-rom so you can reformat your computer, they just put the files in a diffferent partition on your computer. I dont have that much information on it but do you have the cd's that came with your computer?

Kimeramon_2001,
That sounds about right. Although typically these partitions are hidden so that users do not delete them.

Cybr1d,
Is your PC purchased from an OEM (Dell, etc.)? If so you probably have some documentation that might explain what it is for. If you don't have the documentation it should be fairly simple to find an electronic copy on the website.
If someone built the system for you, and they have no idea what they are, then do not delete them. Rename the directory first to something like _Data_. This way if deleting them did cause problems it would be a fairly simple fix. Make sure you have a decent backup though, just in case.
Good luck!

well i bought this comp at radioshack...it was a refurbished compaq, 1.2 ghz..for 300 bucks...looked like a good deal :)

I have seen Compaq use this second partition for repair on several systems.

My roomate just got one not too long ago that was setup exactly the same way and had the same type of files...

Quote:

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Q: Why does HP provide two partitions rather than one?
A: The main reason is to provide users with one partition for system files and applications and another for data. In case of system failure, users can recover the operating system while preserving their data.

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Source

As we know... compaq is owned by HP. Even before HP owned Comapq they used similar recovery methods.

I didn't dig too deep... but I'm sure you can find more info about this on HP/Compaqs site.

thnx phish...i appreciate it :D

sounds to me like its part of your OEM system restoration that was placed in that partition by your restore cd's. usually they are locked out to keep them from being destroyed. on my older compaq pc there was a special link that allowed you to perform a system restore. the original OEM windows layout is stored on that particular partition. i wouldnt really mess with it though, unless you have their cd's, u will need those files to do a system recovery if something happend and you should need one.

thats what it appears to be anyway :-)

yeah.. in the past. compaq's always had a non-dos partition to store setup and diag stuff. I haven't looked at a newer models to see if this is still true but if you can see these files, then they aren't on a non-dos partiton, they're what phish said.. to restore..

I'm not a big fan of compaq (or gateway for that matter) but recently a "friend" dumped
a few old compaq's on my lap.. ones he couldn't fix.. and finding out info on the old
ones can be a bitch.. I've spend a bunch of time with my buddy google..
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=e...c-clone.compaq

also I found compaq's softpaq's ftp.. all their drivers/ulitlities/bios updates

ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/softpaq/

but the best part of it is the 9.24m txt file called "allfiles"
I downloaded that file, then was able to search thru that file with wordpad's
find feature for the model number.. (does give a fairly good desc)
ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/softpaq/allfiles.txt

You are right JcT21 it's the OEM system restoration on system.sav drive D: i have a Compaq 5400us and it's set up the same way. You can do a quick restore with out having to use the cd.So don't delect them unless you have the recovery disk.