Question about the standard partitions

I just got my first ever Dell (first laptop too), and XPS 1530.

I'm curious to know what all the partitions are that come with the laptop.

I have my main partition thats 285.5 GB.

I have a recovery partition thats 10 GB, which is odd, I've always seen those on other people's computers to only be 2 or 3 GB.

Then there's a 2.5 GB (mediadirect or is that included on the recovery partition?)

And finally there's a 94 MB partition that says EISA Configuration.


I was planning on wiping everything out and installing windows myself but I need to know which partitions to keep and what is what.

Thanks a lot.

 

Recovery is just that. It's so big because it's a fully decompressed Vista DVD + Dell crapware.
The MD is only necessary if you want it - no one uses MD and it's kind of pointless, personally I'd just reclaim the space.
The last partition is the utility partition. I usually wipe it out but that's only because I never need it. It certainly could be useful.

 

But what is the utility partition? What's on it? What's its purpose?

Do I need the recovery partition or should I reclaim that 10 GB?

 

Dell utility partition is used to diagnostic your laptop etc.
Recovery partition well thats up to you if you have backed it up on else where then you won,t need it. But as its name indicates it to recover your system in the even of some malfuntion etc back to factory install state.

 

But don't I have all that stuff on the CDs that came with the computer anyways?

Is there anywhere I can find out more about this small utility partition and how to use this diagnostic feature?

 

anyone? can anyone explain this diagnostic partition to me?

thanks

 

If you turn on the computer and tap F12 rapidly, you get an option to boot to the utility (or is it called diagnostic?) partition. This contains a hybrid hardware test (hard drive, memory not sure if it does anything else.) The results are pretty much always inaccurate, and the free tests provided by manufacturers or GWScan for hard drives and MemTest86+ for memory testing is way better anyway.
Since you know how to load a computer by hand I don't see a reason to want the recovery partition, it will just re-install the all bloat Dell puts on if you were to use it.

 

ok thank you so much