Format/Partition Questions

So I've read the "Format Your Laptop" guide, and I have a few questions. I'm hoping someone will be able to help. Thanks in advance.

There seems to be conflicting info about the pre-installed partitions. Or maybe I'm just confused. What I was thinking of doing was just wiping everything to get rid of the "crapware," and then creating one partition for the OS and programs and one for data. According to the guide (if I'm reading correctly), the pre-installed partitions are as follows: the Restore partition is basically useless once the machine is reformatted, the Diagnostics partition is on a disk that comes with the machine, so it doesn't need to be on the hard drive, and the Media Direct partition should stay because, well, it runs Media Direct. I'm fine with keeping that. So far, so good?

Here's where I get confused. Following the description of the partitions is the section titled "What order are the Partitions in and which can I delete," which seems to contradict the previous info. It appears to say that "most users that are comfortable with formatting" (which I took to mean that this was a recommendation) will delete all but the Diagnostics partition because it has "valuable testing utilities." That's logical, but I thought I didn't need to have it on the hard drive. And I thought I wanted to keep the Media Direct partition. Am I missing something here?

 

i deleted my diagnostic partition and i think my computer is fine. haha. nothing major has happened, just a few hick up here and there, but i dont think its cause i deleted that partition.

 

I reformatted my system a few weeks ago. This is how I set up my 120GB HD

1 Diagnostic Partition 47MB
2 XP Partition 30GB
3 Data Partition 80GB
4 Media Direct Partition 2GB

I left the Diagnostic Partition in place because I was told that it needs to be there for Media Direct to boot on its own. I also figured that if I ever needed those utilities, it might be nice to not have to go looking for them, especially if I was away from home. Finally, I figured that I would never notice the missing 47MB it's just not enough space to really worry about it.

I am pretty happy with the way that I chose to partition my drive, but the impending upgrade to Vista has me wondering if I should have made my OS partition 40GB instead. Like most of the questions that I have about Vista, I figure that I won't know for sure until I try it.

Good luck with your reformat. Make sure you download all of your drivers first and everything will go smoothly. I got all of mine directly from the dell support site.