How to reformat laptop HDD with hidden Recovery partition

[drbali]

I have just found out that my ASUS laptop came pre-installed with a fake copy of Windows 7 x64 Pro.
(Finding the original retailer is not an option.)

So, I now want to get rid of it and replace it with a genuine version.
I am not sure how to go about deleting the hidden ASUS partition, or whether I should do that at all?
To the best of my ability, I have already saved all of my drivers on a flash disk. After that, assuming I successfully install my new version of Windows, is there a particular order to install drivers (chipset, motherboard, graphics, USB, LAN, etc)?

The laptop is an ASUS K46CM with the following specifications:

Intel Core i7 3517U @ 1.90 GHz
Motherboard: ASUS K46CM (Ivy bridge)
8 GB DDR3 RAM
Graphics: Intel HD 4000 (2 GB) and GeForce GT 635M (2 GB)
HDD: 750 GB (two partitions plus one hidden)

[Oxiegen]

Do you know for a fact whether or not the recovery partition doesn't contain the factory install of Win7?
If it does you can just find the correct button to press/hold while booting and reset the system.

Otherwise, go right ahead and remove it all.
You can do that during the install of Win7. Just hit the big Custom button and remove any and all partitions from there, and create a new one as you see fit.

[drbali]

The Recovery partition is 164 MB and contains these two files:
boot.sdi = 3,096 KB
Winre.win = 165,249 KB

My manual says to press F9 during bootup. When I do that, if I 'm fast enough, (this laptop needs F9 to be pressed almost instantly), I get the standard choices - no sign of the Recovery options.

I might have made an ASUS rescue disk (a couple of years ago). Trouble is I'll have to find where I put it (I have hundreds of disks). I've "built" many computers in the past but am not always the best organised I should be.

If I do go the re-formatting way and wipe the HDD, is there a "proper" order with installing the various drivers?

Any suggestions and thank you in advance?

[Oxiegen]

In that case, wipe the drive.

And I would start by installing the various mobo drivers first (chipset, usb and so on).
After that I usually go with the graphics drivers so that I get a decent display to work with. Other than that, you can install them in whatever order you like.
Just remember to finish off with a few hours of windows update. :)

[drbali]

Although I'm very acquainted with PC's, this is the first time I've seriously dabbled with a laptop. I decided that there was no other option other than to try and wipe everything off it by re-formatting and starting afresh with a clean (genuine) copy of Windows.

Unfortunately, the hidden locked paritions kept getting in the way. I thought that booting off a Windows installation disk would give me the option to format the drive. Nope. Could not proceed on any of the existing partitions.

In the end, I downloaded UBCD v.5.3.2 on my main computer, burned the iso to a DVD and booted the laptop from that. Found a Hard Disk utility to wipe the entire drive. It took more than 10 hours but eventually finished! After that, I had no problems installing Windows.

I used a free programme called Double Driver to backup all of my drivers to a flash disk. After the laptop was running again, I used it to restore the drivers. Worked fine, except for some proprietary ASUS drivers (webcam, graphics, track pad and so on). I'd downloaded a bunch of drivers for my particular lapto from the ASUS site. Ran those and my laptop's working fine now - no missing features that I can see.

I'm happy to say that I've still got some fingernails left and learned that there's always something to learn.

And thank you Oxiegen for your help. I appreciate it.