How do i create new partitions in XPS M1530 preserving the recovery partition?

i've got my XPS just yest and i saw that there are three partitions made
1)Main Where OS is installed
2)For Recovery
3)For MediaDirect

i dont want the mediadirect partition and would like to split the main partition(1) into three so that i can also install LINUX.
But i was not able to split the partitions from within vista using Shrink and New Volume.
Is there a way i preserve the recovery partition as it is and remove the mediadirect partitions and and split the main partition into three.

 

Have you tried DISKPART.EXE? It's quite a powerful tool once you get used to it.

Here's a pretty good introduction to it... A Description of the Diskpart Command-Line Utility

 

I use partition magic for control of all my partitions
Works well

 

DON'T DO IT!

Ok here's why...
IF you ever want to use the "ctrl+f11" restore function, or media direct, this will possibly HOSE your ability to boot.

Now it CAN be done, but it is SUCH A PAIN that unless you've got about 3-4 days to read and the same for the task, it's easier to simply COMPLETELY LOW LEVEL FORMAT the drive and start from scratch, and skip out on the DSR recovery partition, and simply make a ghost of your OS PARTITION ONLY!!!! This is especially true if you've got a HPA on there- which is almost guaranteed if it's made by Dell.

Trust me.
For more info, read on the threads I've contributed on here, or go find "goodell" in a google search and read about the Dell DSR partitions. You're in for at least a week of solid work, unless you're familiar with HPA's and MBR's and hex editing- but in that case you probably wouldn't be asking this question, eh? So trust me on this one, as I told my little brother, and just either don't do it, or wipe the HD hard time completely with a low-level DOS formatting (NON-windows!!!) app, after ghosting the drive.

This is the kind of serious stuff that simply isn't worth it anymore, not when you can simply GHOST your OS partition, in 20 minutes or less, burn it to DVD's and put it in a new partition on your totally wiped and HPA removed HD.

Partition Magic will work, and it's possibly the best, but if you've got an HPA on there (don't know what a HPA- Host Protected Area is? don't do this!) or don't know how to edit the boot codes on the HD, you're better off just wiping it completely after ghosting that OS partition, and getting rid of Media Direct, in whatever form you have it as. Of course you CAN go ahead and do this stuff, but you'll loose Media Direct, or when you press the button you'll render the OS unbootable and all the partitions unbootable without a boot CD with PTEDIT and DSRFIX on it... or else when you try and use the restore function, it won't work and you'll loose everything on the HD possibly.

I.E. -IT IS A ROYAL PAIN!!!!

And this is true even if you only install a logical partition!!!


The Mass REmarketers like Dell are doing this INTENTIONALLY- why?
Because they can CHARGE you for setting up that extra partition. Sure!

-Why not?

*rolleyes*
-It's not about the customer, but the final profits.



p.s. if you want to begin to try, then DL
DSRFIX and
PTEDIT and boot to them and post here what your HD actually looks like- (I.E. in PTEDIT)...

{EDIT:}p.s.s. If you do a search on the threads here, you can find a tutorial on how to wipe the MD function, put linux on there and have it boot into linux when you press the MD button, as well as how to possibly add the partitions you want in the Windows x86 section of the HD, but setting that up WITH a restore function? There is like 5 MAJOR things to do to do that and have it working, with about 50 steps each in deep-level editing sometimes!!!!! Check my posts.

 

Tangograndma,

So... using windows built in disk management tool and shriking the OS partition and then creating a new one the end of it the OS partition will hose it up? That is surprising.

I might image off my machine just to try that next week.

 

Well what do you know....

I thought about it for a minute and realized that trying what I just suggested is so Non-Destructive that I tried it without worrying about my data.... it worked fine.

I have a 1720 with clean install (No recovery partition anymore) So I have the Diag partition, My OS partition and the media direct partition. I can't speak to your results if you still have the recovery partition but like I said... this is extremely non-destructive and can be undone easily enough to put it back the way it was before.

I went to the disk management tool under computer manager. (Right click on Computer on the start menu and choose manage). Next click Disk Management. I right clicked on my OS partition and chose to shrink it by 20GB. I then had empty space at the end of my OS partition between it and media direct partition. I clicked on the empy space and chose to create a new simple volume and formatted it NTFS thus adding a new partition.

I then hit the media direct button and it worked fine (I had previously run it before) Next I powered down and hit media direct again and it worked just fine too.

Its amazing what you can accomplish when you don't know you can't...

Lol.. I just saw the OP says he couldnt use the Disk Management tool. I never tried with the default install I wonder why that wouldnt work.

 

Glad you sorted it out. By the way, the Disk Management tool you used is a subset of the features of DISKPART.EXE. Probably safer to do what you did though - you can really wreak havoc with diskpart if you make a mistake.

 

I'm fairly sure that diskpart and Disk management are simply wrappers around the DLL's they impliment. Both are just user interfaces to functions beyond their own individual capability. Just copying diskpart.exe to a bartpe CD will not give you diskpart functionality.