I have a few questions.

First I would like to say hello to all, especially those who helped me in the last thread. Since then I have returned a defective system and recieved a new, also defective studio 17. Hopefully the third one is good.

Anyway, I was wondering since I can still ask for a refund should I just wait for the new Studio 17 to be released?, I saw the post here about it.

Does anyone have any ideas of how much it will retail for?


Onto my main issue and reason for posting. I have a 640GB hard drive the problem is they are going to send the computer with the hard drive split into three partitions, which I do not want. The drives are split into OS which was 298 GB, Data Part 1 which was 283, and Recovery which was 15GB.

I would only like two partitions, one containing OS and Recovery and the other empty (or perhaps one containing OS and empty space, while the other contains the Recovery.) The problem is I do not know what size I should allocate for each partition, which is where your wise advice comes into play!

Also I am not sure how to reformat/partition the drive, I tried and was not able to make the drive with no partitions, it always stayed in two different partitions and I am unaware of how to set the sizes differently. I was using the supplied Vista Reinstallation CD. (I was planning on partitioning the single drive from inside Vista after it was installed.)

And finally does anyone have a problem with the power adapter making odds sounds? Like cracling or a bad electrical connection.

Thanks guys, I asked Dell Support most of the following questions, they walked me though the steps to reformat but did not know how to do what I requested. Sorry if anything is unclear, I tried my best to be.

 

I can tell you how I do it. I make a small OS partition, mines 30GB, and the rest is in a data partition. The benefit of doing it this way is you can wipe the OS parition without touching the data partition. Vista does allow some limited resizing of partitions. Gparted is another Linux based option if you want to learn it.

 

Thanks for the information, but after talking with my Dell rep I think I will be ordering the new system now, it's only about 100 dollars more for the same configuration I have now except with a lot of upgrades.

He told me to wait a few days as there should be more discounts within them.

Thanks guys!