New Dell Inspiron 15 w/ Windows 7 - hard drive partition question

I've searched, so please forgive this question if it's been covered.

Just brought home a Dell Inspiron 15 from Best Buy tonight. While going through Windows Explorer and trying to figure out the goofy "Libraries" thing for Windows 7, I noticed that my hard drive is partitioned like so:

OS (C): 38.4GB free of 58.5GB
Local Disk (D): 186Gb free of 229GB

Now I am always used to everything being on 'C'. When I tried to copy all my stuff over from my previous Dell 1420, it wouldn't all copy over to any of the libraries or my "user" folder (Erin) since I didn't have enough space. So despite Windows 7 setting up all these nifty folders in my "Erin" folder (C:/Users), I can't fit all my stuff there.

Is Dell partitioning their hard-drives differently? Am I nuts for thinking mine is set up weird?

Any help on this issue would be great. Thanks in advance.

 

Dell does this not Windows 7, Dell partitions the HD using one as a Recovery drive and the other as your "normal" HD. I just bought a Inspiron 1545 from Dell and like you I want my whole HD to myself so I did a complete reinstall of Windows 7 and reclaimed the "whole" hard-drive deleting the partition, this also gets rid of any "Bloatware" Dell installs at the factory. Now I have C: and that's it. ALTHOUGH I have to note that I always have used a external Hard-drive to periodically back up all my stuff just in case some catastrophe strikes. I think this is much smarter, if the OS crashes then Dells recovery plan is ok but if the harddrive dies then everything is lost so having a seperate HD as my backup is much safer.
Oh my Inspiron is "Midnight Blue", a guy thing lol..

 

Did you do a reinstall of Windows using the restore CDs? I have to admit, restores/reinstalls of Windows are not my area of expertise, but I have a tech staff here at work that can help me.

Thanks for writing in.

I always backup all my stuff to an external HD, too.

Red was my only choice for this model at BB, which is fine by me as it's my favorite color.

 

I've got the same situation with my new Dell 1569. I understand the concept for a separate partition for the OS (which, like the OP, is showing as my C drive), but all my programs and documents are happily setting themselves up there and using up much of the C drive's remaining allocated space, while my D partition is sitting at something like 397GB and remains entirely empty. Surely that is not what was intended?

 

Yeah, it seems really weird, doesn't it? It's driving me crazy, to be honest.

I wonder, can I just expand the C partition and reduce the D partition? Could it be that simple?

 

Partitioning a HDD into an OS and a Data section is a common practice that the computer manufacturer's recently adopted. The argument is that by having your saved data on a separate partition, if the HDD has a issue hopefully it will only affect one of the partitions. It can also make reinstalling an operating system easier, since you don't have to back up your data.

Windows 7 introduced "libraries", which is like a virtual file system. The entire point of the libraries is that you can save you data in a location other than My Documents, or My Music, and have it linked to library for easy access.

Now as far as partitioning, you can shrink D and expand C, or you can get rid of D altogether, or you can leave everything alone and start saving your data to D. There are arguments for and against separating your data from your OS, but in the wide scope of things, it doesn't really matter what you do.

Also, don't ask your work IT group to help you with your personal computer. Unless you have some crisp Benjamins lying around, they don't want to help you.

 

I'm actually friends with the guys in there. Outside of work friends. They have always helped me out and I help them out, too. I'm kind-of a silent work techie, but hard-drive stuff, I'm not touchin' it.

One of them has already offered to help. I plan on buying him lunch.

Thank you for your advice. I really appreciate it.

 

But, everyone here in IT land LOVES doing work for free! It's what we do! My favorite part of Holidays is spending time with family...computers. lol

Seriously, though, at least buy them lunch (good lunch, like sit-down, not McDonalds).

 

Ha! I know what you mean. Seriously. I'm very protective of our tech staff, too. I function as my family's resident tech geek (again, on some of the simpler stuff). I know all too well that tech people do NOT enjoy working on people's personal laptops.

 

I found a few programs that do this:
http://www.partition-tool.com/ and http://gparted.sourceforge.net/

I've also seen a program on my laptop for this.

Is it just as simple as shrinking and expanding partitions? Or do I have to mess with the OS, too?

 

I'll just throw this out there: When I shrank my 7 partition and moved all of my User files to D drive, my boot times went down by 10 seconds or so, and all my programs open faster. Less mess to sort through when the OS is seeking files. YMMV.

My suggestion: Learn to operate with the separate partition layout, it just works. Makes reinstalls easier, keeps the OS uncluttered and efficient, etc.

Be thankful that someone else already went through the step of remapping your user directories to the D drive (not a huge deal, but can be time consuming and tedious).

 

Thanks for the advice.

I have not mapped my user directories to the D drive. I think that shall be my task for tonight.

 

You can expand the partition using Windows' built in Disk Management tool. It's a bit weird that Dell would partition the drive like that. The restore partition is usually just large enough to contain the restore image and that's it.

Jeremysdad, that's odd behavior. I've usually only seen that when you put user files, swap files and so forth on a completely separate hard drive. The drive's read/write head still has to move over the same amount of space regardless of how many partitions are on the disk (files don't physically move on the disk when moved between partitions on the same disk - the File Allocation Table is simply updated to say "the file in sector# now resides on partition 2")

 

My D Drive is platter number 2. Has the entire platter (and head) to itself.

And, I'll keep my OS separate, because, from real world experience, it boots quicker, shuts down quicker, and in general, is quicker. Also, a fresh install is no big deal, no data to move, no windows.old to worry about. Select partition, format and install, and bam...true fresh install with all of your data untouched, just how you left it. Just have to remap user directories (15 minutes), and reinstall your apps (wait, what's this? I reinstalled Thunderbird/Outlook, and all of my mail and account settings are there instantly?) <<--I love myself, that's why I do it.

YMMV, but your opinion is noted. Just chock my behavior up to and in addition to, a long list of other odd behaviors, this being almost insignificant.

As you can see by my partition layout (attached), the first half of my drive (platter 1) is allocated to C, two Linux OS's, and Linux data. Second half (platter 2) is D drive. Makes sense to me.

 

Thanks for the tip. I'll see how comfortable I am with the way Dell set it up and then see about repartitioning if it bugs me too much.

From what I can see on the Windows partitioning tool, it looks like you have to free up some space on D before you can claim it on C.