Reclaim missing laptop hdd space??

[Toolman]

A year or so ago I opted for the 80 gig 7200 rpm hdd, rather than the 100 gig 5400 rpm, in my Dell XPS Gen 2 laptop, but only 52.7 gigs show up as total hdd space. I'm running out of hdd space and could really use that extra 20 gigs. Where did that hdd space go? Is it partitioned off for system recovery or backup by Dell?

If that's the case, I'll need to reformat to reclaim that space, right? or is there another way?

How big have laptop 7200rpm hdds gotten now? Has the new "on end" hdd storage format made it to laptop hdds yet?

Thanks!

 

[DaveSimmons]

An "80" GB should have about 74 GB of space, so it sounds like you ordered it with a recovery partition instead of or in addtion to recovery CDs.

Before you delete it with something like Acronis Partition Expert, is it your only way to restore Windows? You might feel silly deleting it then spending $100 to buy a copy of XP.

A tool like PE could let you get at the space, but the process is _not_ 100% safe, so you need a way to restore Windows if things go wrong.

You also need a backup of all the files and email that you care about, but you need that anyway since the hard drive will die on you some day, probably with no warning.

 

[corkyg]

Dave makes a good point. Dell frequently uses a hidden partition in which to store recovery software and OS.

 

[essasin]

Originally posted by: corkyg
Dave makes a good point. Dell frequently uses a hidden partition in which to store recovery software and OS.

They actually have two partitions that are in FAT format.