New Dell 8600 - odd partitioning?

[MIDIman]

Hi all - my work finally bought me a laptop (the order was placedon Sept 28th!) and I'm just getting a feel for actually having something portable for the first time ever...I'll be spending alot of time on this thing!

I have a 60gb 7200rpm drive installed (Hitachi). After removing lots of useless stuff, the C-drive shows ~4.7 gigs as being used (4.37GB) and I can really only account for maybe 2.5gb if I add upall the folders. Is there something hidden that I'm not seeing?

In the Disk Management, there is some very odd partitioning. It lists three partitions as:

#1 Volume = "noname" / Partition Basic / FAT / Healthy (EISA Configuration) / 47MB Capacity / 40MB Free / 85% Free

#2 Volume = "noname" / Partition Basic / FAT32 / Healthy (Unknown Partition) / 3.49GB Capacity / 1.56GB Free / 44% Free

#3 Volume = C: / Partition Basic / NTFS / Healthy (system) / 52.34 GB Capacity / 47.96 GB Free / 91% Free

What in the world are those first two partitions?

 

[w0ss]

Not sure but I know I once had a laptop that the recovery image was right on the drive. in a partition like that.

 

[MIDIman]

Recovery Image?

What's included in the recovery? What software uses it? Dell, Microsoft?

I would really like to get every last byte out of this thing without adding another HD or external HD. Curious if anyone recommends not tampering with this.

Thanks

 

[jvarszegi]

Originally posted by: MIDIman
Recovery Image?

What's included in the recovery? What software uses it? Dell, Microsoft?

I would really like to get every last byte out of this thing without adding another HD or external HD. Curious if anyone recommends not tampering with this.

Thanks

I don't remember what's on the tiny partition, but w0ss is right about the other. It contains recovery information, to be used in case of emergency; this includes a full OS image and the other ancillary stuff like drivers etc. that Dell tacks on.

In my case, my IBM T41 (from work) came with a 4.5GB hidden partition, that was completely hidden from the OS; I had to go into the BIOS to disable it. After that it became visible to the OS and programs, and I was able to use Partition Magic to reclaim the wasted space.

The thing about those hidden restore partitions is that they often will just allow resetting of your machine to a vanilla state anyway, the way it came from the vendor. In my case, installing the OS is no big deal compared to reinstalling all my programs, so it wouldn't have bought me much to leave it in place. If your image contains valuable information, you should use System Restore and/or a utility like Ghost to take periodic full system backups. In my case, I back up my important project data, and rely on cautiousness to keep me safe with the rest; I don't really expect a system failure unless hardware fails on me, and at that point I'll deal with the problem.

If you have an old hard drive lying around, especially an old laptop hard drive, I recommend buying a $10-20 external portable drive enclosure. Make sure it's USB 2.0 compatible. That will make file-based backups easy. Then if you want, take less frequent backups of your entire system. In any case I wouldn't blow away that tiny partition until you find out what's on it.

 

[MIDIman]

So in essence - if I load up ghost and burn the image to DVD, its basically the same thing as this hidden partition that Dell has preinstalled, right?

Of so - heck, I've been thinking about having a copy Ghost lying around anyway. May as well start now.

 

[newParadigm]

Aright,

One thing to try, (if the peeps at work arent like IT Nazis)

Is to just do a fresh install of WinXP Pro, or wahtever OS flavor you like.

Do you own the lappy, or is owkr just letrting you use it?

 

[Gunbuster]

Turn off or lower the system restore usage

 

[jvarszegi]

Originally posted by: Gunbuster
Turn off or lower the system restore usage

That's not responsible for the extra partition. I agree that it should be turned off, though, if performance is an issue.

 

[jvarszegi]

Originally posted by: MIDIman
So in essence - if I load up ghost and burn the image to DVD, its basically the same thing as this hidden partition that Dell has preinstalled, right?

Of so - heck, I've been thinking about having a copy Ghost lying around anyway. May as well start now.

Heck, it's ten times better IMHO. Every time you burn an image using Ghost, you can revert your system to that point in time, all the program settings and everything. In my case, with my Thinkpad, it was only capable of restoring the system to a fresh vanilla state as a last resort; this is different from XP's System Restore feature. In any case, an image saved to some other media is better in two ways: you get to use your whole hard disk, and you have the image even if the hard disk fails. You could literally slap a new drive in your laptop after a hard drive failure, restore the Ghost image, and be up and running as if nothing at all had happened.

 

[MIDIman]

Sounds good - since the laptop is still fresh, I'll probably jsut do this.

I always have System Restore disabled...read too much to know not to use it.

 

[Gunbuster]

The first partition is diags, its pretty usefull for bad drives, start the HDD test, ....., profit (error code pops up)

Diag partiton error codes are great for the call center drones when you need a part replaced.

 

[MIDIman]

The first partition is diags, its pretty usefull for bad drives, start the HDD test, ....., profit (error code pops up)

I've never heard of this diagnostic tool before...what HDD test application are you talking about exactly?

 

[MIDIman]

Can Ghost 9 copy multiple partitions, including this hidden one, as one big image?

Trying to find a method to boot from CD or DVD for restoration across a network. No floppy with my lappy.

 

[imported_umbra]

from what I can tell some manufacterers instead of spending 10 cents on restore discs ship the system with a restore partition that enables a system to be restored to it's original condition that what is on my HP. Personally I think it's a horrible idea what if the drive goes bad?

 

[MIDIman]

moved here...