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    Can Restore and Diagnostics Partitions be preserved when installing XP from CD?

    Discussion in 'Dell' started by nedsta, May 7, 2006.

  1. nedsta

    nedsta Notebook Enthusiast

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    In other words, can a separate partition be created for XP and keep the 2 existing partitions installed by the factory. Have purchased a new Dell B130 for a college student and have the Dell XP Home disc and driver disc. I’ve tried to delete the unwanted junk and this is very time consuming and not very satisfactory as you know. Since the notebook has a 60 gb drive I would like to just keep the factory installed restore and diagnostics partitions. When installing XP from the disc can I select a new partition to install it on? Thanks!
     
    nedsta, May 7, 2006
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  2. some_taxpayer

    some_taxpayer Notebook Guru

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    That's pretty much what the process is. Just delete the main partition, and then reinstall XP on it.
     
    some_taxpayer, May 7, 2006
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  3. nedsta

    nedsta Notebook Enthusiast

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    So I will have a choice about choosing whether to delete the restore and diagnostics partitions?
     
    nedsta, May 7, 2006
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  4. MarkMcK

    MarkMcK Notebook Evangelist

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    It is not exactly spelled out that way during the Windows reinstallation. What happens is that one of the install steps checks your hard drive for existing partitions. During this 'scan' three partitions will be identified. They won't be listed by name [e.g. Dell Utility, XP, Dell Restore]. Instead the list will detail the partition types and sizes. The XP partition will be the 'biggest' one. If for some reason you wanted to delete the Dell partitions, this is when/where it would be done...

    hth

    Mark
     
    MarkMcK, May 7, 2006
    #4