Whats the use of the Dell Recovery Partition?

Would it screw up my system if I delete that partition during a fresh vista installation?

My I6400 came with 3 partitions

1. Main System partition ~140 gb
2. Media Direct partition ~ 2gb
3. Recovery partition ~ 10 gb

Last night I was doing a fresh vista installation and I tried to divide up my main partition (140 gb) into 2 ( 2 70gb partitions) but that didn't work coz it said that the maximum allowable partitions for one drive is 3 (and there's 3 partitions already)

So I was thinking of deleting the recovery partition (especially that I don't find any use for it) and create the 70gb partition instead. Would that screw up my system or dell settings?

Any help would be appreciated

 

If you don't mind going through your recovery discs for a restore, then you can delete the recovery partition.

 

well if you delete the Dell recovery partion you wont be able to use it to restore your laptop to factory conditions, so if your not worried about it then delete it.
I deleted mine doing a fresh re-format of Vista.
Havent had any problems and didnt loose any of Dells functions.If you do loose something just go to their site and download it.

 

So what is the difference between restoring the laptop to factory conditions and doing a fresh install of windows vista?

Does restoring to factory conditions install all the crapware on the computer again? My only regret about doing a fresh vista install is that I lost the MS Office (Trial version) which was still valid till the end of june + norton antivirus.

I dont mind a fresh install of vista if my system crashes, as long as I save my important files, documents, pictures etc on a separate partition so I don't lose them

 

i would suggest that you burn a set of rcovery discs with the provided software
""just in case"" you cant be too sure when you would need it to be restored it to the original factory settings

if you do so and delete the partition its going to create a partition automatically during the recovery process if the discs are used to recover the laptop
it copies the information on to the partition which is usually hidden or user inaccessible though it can be deleted
provided hat you create a set of redovery dvds everything should be fine
cheers

 

bringing it back to factory state means that the software that intially cae installed with your laptop like norton will be reinstalled and you will have to painstakingly uninstall each again but so will the original drivers be insalled
a fresh install installs nothing but the original OS without any of the crappy software and helps make your system faster and more responsive in most cases and is usually suggested that if you attempt a clean install to downlaod the oriinal drivers from the official support website

its also recommended that you do a backup of all your imporatant files and the Swsetup folder before you attemp anything

cheers,

 

I just did this on the weekend, except I forgot to delete the hidden 20MB Dell partition. I burned the Recovery partition (4GB worth), deleted the Main system and Recovery partitions, created 2 70GB partitions and reinstalled Vista using the Dell Vista DVD and it worked like a charm. Picked up most of the hardware by itself except the card reader and sound card drivers. Installed those with the provided Dell Resource CD and i was good to go. Recovered a tonne of space I was giving up to the Recovery partition and all the crapware that came with it. Should I install the Dell NVidia driver or just keep the WDM driver that Vista installed? Does it matter?

PC runs a lot faster now and cleaner with only the things I wanted running in the background.

Just sucks trying to find software that is properly designed for Vista. I already had a huge software library for XP and over 80% of it is useless. Oh well, I still like Vista and it's interface/features so I'm keeping it for now. If it pisses me off again I may revert to XP Pro until MS comes out with SP1 for Vista to clean up any bugs/compatibility issues.

 

Dell 6400 fan, I am not sure what 20 mb dell partition ur referring to, but mine just came with three partitions mentioned above.

How did you back up the recovery before deleting it? did you just copy and paste all the folders to a dvd? I might be able to backup the recovery partition on my 300 gb external hdd, but I am not sure if it would work then (if I need to use it )

Did you have to rename your new 70 gb partition to "recovery" and save the recovery files back into it after the clean installation?

The only inconvenience I came across after installing a fresh copy of vista is having to install media direct 3.0 (as well as the drivers which could be obtained from the website).

 

wella,

Hmm.. I had 4 partitions when I got mine.

1. (Hidden) Dell Recovery partition.
2. D: (Recovery) - 10GB
3. C: (OS) - 130 GB
4. (Hidden) MediaDirect - 2GB

I deleted the #2 and 3 partitions when reinstalling Vista using the 'Disk Manager' during install. (Something like the XP disk manager during install).

I haven't tried MediaDirect yet, but I'm assuming it's screwed since it's tied to the OS somehow. I will have to download Mediadirect v3.0 and reinstall it. Do I have to wipe the MediaDirect partition as well and then reinstall the software? I've never dealt with MediaDirect before as at work we only have the Latitude's without all these 'consumer level' toys like MediaDirect.

I left the MediaDirect partition alone just in case it would screw up the MediaDirect feature.

I backed up my Recovery partition using Symantec Ghost v8 DOS version that booted via CD. I then created an image of the entire partition and it fit (using max compression) onto 1 DVD. This way, if I want to I can recover the Recovery partition.

I don't think I will recover it since I have everything I need (except MediaDirect) working and I really don't see a need for it except for those people who aren't very computer savvy and can have Dell's tech's walk someone through a full reimage without any CD's. I don't have that issue as I'm in tech support and this is what I do for a living.

On another note, have you found a good CD/DVD burning program that fully supports Vista (other than Nero)? I'm looking for alternatives.

 

Hi,

I also have the same 4 partitions when my M1210 arrived. Last night, I deleted the 10gig partition and extend the OS partition to the left so that it includes all the unallocated space (i find it weird they have put the D: parition to the left of C . I was using GParted to do all these took 7hrs.

My question is, is 7hrs of continous moving/copy of clusters wont do any physical damage to my HD?.. My refurb unit arrived just a couple of days ago from Dell outlet.

Thanks.