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    What is "Local Volume" [Dell Utility] drive on a new XPS?

    Discussion in 'Dell XPS and Studio XPS' started by Leica01, Dec 13, 2010.

  1. Leica01

    Leica01 Notebook Guru

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    Sorry for putting up similar posts. But I urgently need some clarification before installing Ubuntu.

    The new XPS has three pre-installed drives:
    1. Local volume - 109MB , FAT16 - which has Dell Utility and marked as Primary MBR
    2. Recovery - 9.881 GB NTFS - also Primary MBR
    3. C: NTFS - on which Windows 7 reside. it's Primary MBR

    What is this "Local Volume" ? Can it be converted into a Logical MBR type drive without causing any harm?
     
    Leica01, Dec 13, 2010
    #1
  2. fakename

    fakename Notebook Geek

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    I believe that is dell's recovery partition to return it to factory fresh.
     
    fakename, Dec 13, 2010
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  3. Leica01

    Leica01 Notebook Guru

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    But there's already a "Recovery" drive [as mentioned above #2] !!!
     
    Leica01, Dec 13, 2010
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  4. BitHeroes

    BitHeroes Notebook Enthusiast

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    I'm pretty sure that's the Windows 7 Recovery Partition?
     
    BitHeroes, Dec 13, 2010
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  5. seeker_moc

    seeker_moc Notebook Virtuoso

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    During boot, the BIOS will say something like "F12 for Boot Menu". Pressing F12 will allow you to pick which device to boot from (HDD, CD-ROM, USB, etc), but it will also give you an option for "Dell Diagnostics", which will put your GPU, GPU, RAM, HDD, etc through a series of tests. The "Dell Utility" partition contains all the diagnostic programs.
     
    seeker_moc, Dec 13, 2010
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  6. Leica01

    Leica01 Notebook Guru

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    Thanks for the clarification.

    Does it mean that I should NOT convert into a Logical drive and leave it as Primary ?

    But that would kill the possibility of installing of Ubuntu by creating another Primary drive ?!
     
    Leica01, Dec 13, 2010
    #6
  7. seeker_moc

    seeker_moc Notebook Virtuoso

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    I dual boot Fedora on mine. I had no issues dual booting with it back when I was using my stock 500GB Dell HDD with the recovery, diag partition, etc, and Fedora as only a 'logical' partition.

    You can also download the Dell diag programs from the Dell drivers website and create a bootable CD with it, then delete the utility partition all together.
     
    seeker_moc, Dec 13, 2010
    #7