Question about partitions

I'm sorry if this has been covered, but I didn't see anything on it. I have two questions...

I just bought an e1505, and I'm fairly proficient with computers, but have never really worked with partitions.

1) Is there a good free partition manager available? If so, what is it? I've found a couple, but don't know if they are any good.

2) If I get a partition manager, can I delete the "Dell Restore" partition without any ill effects, and without reformatting the HD?

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

I don't have any personal experience. If it were me.... I'd spend the $$$ and get a commercial product [e.g Partition Magic, Acronis Disk Director].

That's kind of my present albeit 'temporary' state; I used Partition Magic to delete the "Restore" partition. I did need to run the Dell MediaDirect REPAIR utility, but that was about it.

Mark

 

I don't want to be doing a lot of partitioning (I don't think), so could I use the free trial of Partition Magic, to just gain back the GB's Dell used for the restore partition, or is it crippled?

 

Sorry... don't know

Mark

 

Just answered this same question on another post, looks like it's a fairly common one. There's a utility called DSRIRRemv2 that wipes the Dell Restore partition and adds the space to your current partition. On my 6400 it's under C:\Dell\Utilities\DSR. Don't know if it works for every Dell system, but looks like it should.

 

Since you answered me on both posts, I'll just reply here... Thanks a lot Moebius! I'll check that when I get home tonight! Judging from your reply in the other post, I'm assuming this method doesn't mess with the MediaDirect functions?

 

Nope, shouldn't do a thing to MediaDirect, from what I've learnt so far. I haven't used this yet, since I want to set everything right and try it for a while before I kill the Restore Partition.

 

fwiw... You can probably find information about this utility in your Owner's Manual. For me it was under "Using Dell PC Restore by Symantec" section...

I did note that it says....

The way I read/understand that 'blurb' is that the hard drive space that was used by PC Restore will show up as Unallocated Space and NOT simply 'tacked-on' to your main "C" drive OS partition -- creating one 'bigger' partition.

Using Disk Manager you should be able to make a new partition where the 'old' Restore partition was located and use the space. But you'll need some other 'partition tool' if you want to consolidate the space into your "C" drive.

Mark

ps I need to ammend this post based on something else I ran across...

An Inspiron 8600 Owner's Manual says this...

Well... I don't know what to think

 

MarckMck, I think I'm confused, are you telling me that it'll show up as free space, that I can't use? When I get home I'm definitely checking into this.

 

I'd say you'll be able to use it... just a question of how the 'new' space will show up... 1) Unallocated space where you can create a new partition with Disk Manager; or 2) 'merged' into your existing "C" partition... 'no-muss-no-fuss'.

Looks like one of the 'steps' the application goes thru is a 'Checking for supported partition next to Dell PC Restore partition'. If it fails the 'check' the utility will 'Quit'. Wouldn't see why it would be doing this 'checking' unless it was planning to 'do' something to the neighboring partition.

So my guess... If you haven't messed with anything, it will simply 'expand' your existing "C" partition into the newly available space.

Guess we'll see....


Mark

 

I'll let you know tonight. I'm about to get off work, but may not get to it for a couple of hours. I'malmost definitely going to do this. I want that space back, and I have the XP disk (I paid my ten dollars for it, so I don't need the partition).

Thanks for all your help everyone.

 

Well, I just checked the Manual of my 6400. It's says that the newly freed space will show up as new free space readily available for use in windows. So it seems we're right on track with this! Waiting for confirmation on 05Edge's procedure, then.

 

Okay, no manual checkage here, just went to it, found it, executed it, and now I have 4 gigs more on my available space, and MediaDirect works fine! Thanks a lot! Anyone know why my 80 gig drive shows only 73?

 

From my understanding, it happens like Mark describes it. This is standard with all partitions. If you delete them (using the utility, XP disc, or using disk manager in XP), it takes the space and makes it unallocated space. This will not show up in windows unless you create a partition out of it (which would make it a spare partition) or you add it to an existing partition.

If you just want to make a spare partition out of it, you can use the XP disc and follow the same steps to formatting. Once you create the partition, you hit F3 several times, and this will exit the XP format process so you don't have to reformat windows.

If you want to add it to your XP partition, you'll need some 3rd party software like Partition Magic to do it.

 

Where is it showing only 73gb? It could be that the 4gb that you deleted is unallocated space so it won't show up in XP. Then you also have space for the media Direct partition and filler space that could account for the remaining space.

 

Just for clarification... Your "C" drive is 4GB larger than it was or you now have a 4GB unallocated space sitting next to your "C" drive [as seen in XP Disk Manager]????

wrt Hard Drive Capacity...

So for you/me XP will report our Hard Drives as 74.4GB.... EXCEPT...

It is my belief that there is approximately 1.4GB of the hard drive set aside for MediaDirect in a 'special' area of the hard drive that XP does not know about. So XP will report what you see... approximately 73GB

hth

Mark

 

Within XP Pro, there's a "partition manager" that's something like Partition Magic or Acronis...while it isn't as flexible, it does many of the same things. It's "free" since it's resident in the OS; you get to it in computer management as a subsection of "Storage"...in fact, the GUI looks almost exactly like PMagic except for the colors and button commands.

As a caution: you should read through some explanations of the process before using MSFT's partition wizard. In fact, it helped to establish either a large partition or drive and experiment on it before modifying anything on an operational system...back up all your data files, too.

The nice thing about PMagic or Acronis or BootIt NG is that they have systems and manuals to learn their products. Otherwise, you can get what you were speaking of through XP...you only have MSFT's abbreviated explanation of their disc management system within their knowledge base articles...and that is almost as intimidating as a BSD experience, only it lasts longer.

 

No, the "Free Space" shown increased by ~ 4 GBs. But it says I have ~64.4 MB free of 73 MB (Last night it was closer to 60) Does windows + the programs I know about equal about 8 GBs now? I have only added AVG, ZoneAlarm, Gmail notifier, anf FairUseWizard LE, Mozilla Firefox, and I've removed about as much bloatware as I know about.

This soundss about right. Thanks for the info!

 

Thanks Whitney, the removal tool worked great, but this is good to know!

 

Before we rap this up....

Can you take a quick look in Disk Manager and report what you see for Disk 0???

Should see an entry for 73.12GB then a graphic showing whatever partitions XP thinks are there along with any unallocated space...

Thanks

Mark

 

I believe I'm looking in the correct folder. I went to My Computer, then right clicked on the C:\ drive, then went to Hardware, then clicked on the Hitachi drive, then properties, then populate. This is what I see:
Disk: Disk 0
Type: Basic
Status: Online
Partition Style: Master Boot Record (MBR)
Capacity: 74873 MB
Unallocated space: 0MB
Reserved Space: 0MB

Volumes Capacity
(volume icon) 39 MB
(volume icon) (C 74834 MB

 

Sorry... should have been 'more specific' [ THX 1138]...

Right Click "My Computer"; Select "Manage"; Under "Storage" tree look for "Disk Management" and open that section

That should get you 'there'.

Mark

 

okay I have two volumes, the 39 MB one, and one that says
it's a basic partition NTFS, Healthy (system) 73.08 GB, 64.74 free, no fault tolerance, 0% overhead

 

While poking around in there I noticed there were two display chipsets loaded, is this normal?

 

From what I can find out [and at looking at mine].. this is normal and probably related to the fact you can/may have two monitors associated with the computer... the primary display and an external display [via D-Sub 15 VGA-out connector]

Sounds like the 'left overs' from the 'Restore' partition got pulled into your 'Main C' partition.

Anyway... glad you got everything working

Mark

 

Thanks, me too... does yours stutter when playing DVDs inside windows? Ihave another thread on this, but since you have one too, thought maybe you'd know.

Thanks again.