Partitions on Dell Computer

[Earl Partridge]

Trying to help a friend with her Dell Dimension 3000 machine. It would not boot.
I installed that hard drive into another machine as a Slave and it was recognized.
XP's Disk Management showed the drive to be partitioned (or at least split) into
3 sections. The first simply shows 39 Meg Healthy, the second shows (C 70 GB
(System) Healthy. I don't recall exactly what the third section showed but it did
(and does) show 4.17 GB. I did delete that third section.

Now with that HD back in the original machine, it will boot after being prompted to
press F1 - Primary Drive 1 not found.

I tried several things with that 3rd section, but nothing eliminates that prompt for F1.

I suspect that 3rd section was something unique with the Dell system.

Any thoughts?

Earl

 

[Malke]

Trying to help a friend with her Dell Dimension 3000 machine. It would
not boot. I installed that hard drive into another machine as a Slave and
it was recognized. XP's Disk Management showed the drive to be partitioned
(or at least split) into
3 sections. The first simply shows 39 Meg Healthy, the second shows (C
70 GB
(System) Healthy. I don't recall exactly what the third section showed
but it did
(and does) show 4.17 GB. I did delete that third section.

Now with that HD back in the original machine, it will boot after being
prompted to press F1 - Primary Drive 1 not found.

I tried several things with that 3rd section, but nothing eliminates that
prompt for F1.

I suspect that 3rd section was something unique with the Dell system.

Any thoughts?

Yes, you should have told your friend to take the machine to a professional
computer repair shop where they would not have messed with the partitions
like that.

Dells usually have at least two partitions - a small one that holds
diagnostic utilities and the larger one that holds the operating system,
programs, and data. Some Dells also have a smallish partition which holds a
recovery image.

There is no way for people who can't look at the drive to know what is on it
or what was on it before you destroyed the last partition. Your description
of the problem - can't boot - indicates possible hardware failure but there
is simply no way to know, particularly because you messed with the
partitions.

Another thing to consider: did you change the drive's jumper settings when
you put it into the other computer? Dells use Cable Select.

At this point I would do thorough hardware diagnostics on the machine and
the drive. If everything passes, do a clean install of Windows using Dell's
installation media.

Malke

 

[Gerry]

Earl

The computer needs to be fixed by someone who does not think that fixing the problem will be achieved by deleting the restore partition.


~~~~


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Trying to help a friend with her Dell Dimension 3000 machine. It would not boot.
I installed that hard drive into another machine as a Slave and it was recognized.
XP's Disk Management showed the drive to be partitioned (or at least split) into
3 sections. The first simply shows 39 Meg Healthy, the second shows (C 70 GB
(System) Healthy. I don't recall exactly what the third section showed but it did
(and does) show 4.17 GB. I did delete that third section.

Now with that HD back in the original machine, it will boot after being prompted to
press F1 - Primary Drive 1 not found.

I tried several things with that 3rd section, but nothing eliminates that prompt for F1.

I suspect that 3rd section was something unique with the Dell system.

Any thoughts?

Earl

 

[Mike Hall - MVP]

Trying to help a friend with her Dell Dimension 3000 machine. It would not boot.
I installed that hard drive into another machine as a Slave and it was recognized.
XP's Disk Management showed the drive to be partitioned (or at least split) into
3 sections. The first simply shows 39 Meg Healthy, the second shows (C 70 GB
(System) Healthy. I don't recall exactly what the third section showed but it did
(and does) show 4.17 GB. I did delete that third section.

Now with that HD back in the original machine, it will boot after being prompted to
press F1 - Primary Drive 1 not found.

I tried several things with that 3rd section, but nothing eliminates that prompt for F1.

I suspect that 3rd section was something unique with the Dell system.

Any thoughts?

Earl
Earl

Tell your friend to contact Dell for assistance. Advise your friend to plead with Dell, as a friend seems to have only made the process of system recovery 100% harder than it otherwise would have been.

Next, promise your friend that you will never help them again.. Do this if you value the friendship..





--
Mike Hall - MVP
How to construct a good post..
http://dts-l.com/goodpost.htm
How to use the Microsoft Product Support Newsgroups..
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=newswhelp&style=toc
Mike's Window - My Blog..
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/default.aspx

 

[HeyBub]

Trying to help a friend with her Dell Dimension 3000 machine. It
would not boot.
I installed that hard drive into another machine as a Slave and it
was recognized.
XP's Disk Management showed the drive to be partitioned (or at least
split) into
3 sections. The first simply shows 39 Meg Healthy, the second shows
(C 70 GB
(System) Healthy. I don't recall exactly what the third section
showed but it did
(and does) show 4.17 GB. I did delete that third section.

Now with that HD back in the original machine, it will boot after
being prompted to
press F1 - Primary Drive 1 not found.

I tried several things with that 3rd section, but nothing eliminates
that prompt for F1.

I suspect that 3rd section was something unique with the Dell system.

Any thoughts?

Unfortunately, you deleted the partition containing that which is necessary
to restore the computer to its pristine state.

There are software tools that can recover (sometimes) a deleted partition.

Put the drive back in your machine and copy off all your friend's data. Make
two copies.

The original problem could have been anything, quite possibly a corrupted
Master Boot Record. This is easy to fix - for someone who knows what they're
doing.

 

[Bill in Co.]

That likely was the Dell System Restore (DSR) partition. Why on earth you
would have deleted it is beyond me.

That will create two problems: one for just booting up into windows (since
checking for the DSR is involved as part of the normal Dell bootup routine),
but that can be resolved if you know what you are doing, and IF that was the
ONLY problem.

And the second is that you have now lost the capability of ever falling back
to the factory shipped condition.


Trying to help a friend with her Dell Dimension 3000 machine. It would not
boot.
I installed that hard drive into another machine as a Slave and it was
recognized.
XP's Disk Management showed the drive to be partitioned (or at least split)
into
3 sections. The first simply shows 39 Meg Healthy, the second shows (C 70
GB
(System) Healthy. I don't recall exactly what the third section showed but
it did
(and does) show 4.17 GB. I did delete that third section.

Now with that HD back in the original machine, it will boot after being
prompted to
press F1 - Primary Drive 1 not found.

I tried several things with that 3rd section, but nothing eliminates that
prompt for F1.

I suspect that 3rd section was something unique with the Dell system.

Any thoughts?

Earl

 

[Unknown]

Hey Bill: Why don't you indent and mark the messages you respond to with
the > character? It would make it
easier for us to separate the posts.

 

[Twayne]

Trying to help a friend with her Dell Dimension 3000 machine. It

would not boot.
I installed that hard drive into another machine as a Slave and it
was recognized.
XP's Disk Management showed the drive to be partitioned (or at least
split) into
3 sections. The first simply shows 39 Meg Healthy, the second shows
(C 70 GB
(System) Healthy. I don't recall exactly what the third section
showed but it did
(and does) show 4.17 GB. I did delete that third section.

Now with that HD back in the original machine, it will boot after
being prompted to
press F1 - Primary Drive 1 not found.

I tried several things with that 3rd section, but nothing eliminates
that prompt for F1.

I suspect that 3rd section was something unique with the Dell system.

Any thoughts?

Earl

As others said, you've probably damaged the ability to ever do a
recovery to delivery status. Your best course now would be to check
with Dell to see if they can help at all. She might be able to get an
XP install disk for a decent price, then again maybe not; depends on a
lot of things including the wind direction.

Also, not to add insult to injury, but ... do NOT post to newsgroups in
HTML or Rich Text, whatever youwant to call it. Use Plain Text only.
Some groups will allow html but most do not.

 

[Bill in Co.]

Normally that automatically happens. Don't know why it didn't.

 

[Patrick Keenan]

Hey Bill: Why don't you indent and mark the messages you respond to with
the > character? It would make it
easier for us to separate the posts.

The reason is that the quote marks are an automatic setting. But if you're
using Windows Mail or OE to respond to posts, it's pretty common for WM or
OE to be unable to determine the MIME type of the original post, and give up
and not quote at all. It's really rather an annoying defect.

The workaround for this is to answer that post in Thunderbird or another
newsreader that doesn't have this problem.

HTH
-pk

 

[Patrick Keenan]

Trying to help a friend with her Dell Dimension 3000 machine. It would not
boot.
I installed that hard drive into another machine as a Slave and it was
recognized.
XP's Disk Management showed the drive to be partitioned (or at least split)
into
3 sections. The first simply shows 39 Meg Healthy, the second shows (C 70
GB
(System) Healthy. I don't recall exactly what the third section showed but
it did
(and does) show 4.17 GB. I did delete that third section.

Now with that HD back in the original machine, it will boot after being
prompted to
press F1 - Primary Drive 1 not found.

I tried several things with that 3rd section, but nothing eliminates that
prompt for F1.

I suspect that 3rd section was something unique with the Dell system.

Any thoughts?

Earl

==================

Yes. The small partition was the restore partition, which is critical as
that PC probably didn't come with restore CDs, but with that partition
instead. It's for reinstalling Windows.

Changing the partitions will do *nothing* for this boot-time F1 error
message, which is produced by the BIOS. The Bios doesn't know or care about
the partitions.

You most likely have the jumpers set for the drive to be Slave, when it
should be Cable Select.

HTH
-pk

 

[Bill in Co.]

Yup, automatic setting. I'm using Outlook Express, with Quote-Fix.
Haven't generally noticed any real problems up to this point, however.

 

[Unknown]

It worked this time.

Normally that automatically happens. Don't know why it didn't.

 

[Twayne]

The reason is that the quote marks are an automatic setting. But if
you're using Windows Mail or OE to respond to posts, it's pretty
common for WM or OE to be unable to determine the MIME type of the
original post, and give up and not quote at all. It's really
rather an annoying defect.

Whaaat? I've used OE since day one and never seen such a problem, MIME
or otherwise. MIME "type" has nothing to do with it, I'm pretty much
certain. Settings, malware or file corruption are much more likely
reasons.

The workaround for this is to answer that post in Thunderbird or
another newsreader that doesn't have this problem.

Yeah, if you want to fart around with addins and other similar things.
Nothing really wrong with TB other than that, though. It's a decent
mailreader albeit IMO missing a bunch of stuff as received.

 

[Patrick Keenan]

It worked this time.

Yes, it's annoyingly inconsistent.

 

[Bill in Co.]

Trying to help a friend with her Dell Dimension 3000 machine. It would
not
boot.
I installed that hard drive into another machine as a Slave and it was
recognized.
XP's Disk Management showed the drive to be partitioned (or at least
split)
into
3 sections. The first simply shows 39 Meg Healthy, the second shows (C
70
GB (System) Healthy. I don't recall exactly what the third section showed
but
it did (and does) show 4.17 GB. I did delete that third section.

Now with that HD back in the original machine, it will boot after being
prompted to press F1 - Primary Drive 1 not found.

I tried several things with that 3rd section, but nothing eliminates that
prompt for F1.

I suspect that 3rd section was something unique with the Dell system.

Any thoughts?

Earl

==================

Yes. The small partition was the restore partition, which is critical as
that PC probably didn't come with restore CDs, but with that partition
instead. It's for reinstalling Windows.

Changing the partitions will do *nothing* for this boot-time F1 error
message, which is produced by the BIOS. The Bios doesn't know or care
about
the partitions.

Maybe not for that one (the F1 error), but, IIRC, the Dell BIOS does
initially look for the presence of the Dell System Restore Partition when it
boots up (looking specifically for the Ctrl-F11 key sequence), and then it
passes control over to Windows (typically on the second or third partition).
Dell normally has created 2 primary hidden partitions (one for some hardware
checkingr routines, and one for the DSR).

And if you delete that DSR partition, the system won't boot up into windows,
unless you change the boot.ini file to reflect that change in the partition
number that has windows, at least as I recall.

 

[Gerry]

Bill

Have you installed all Outlook Express updates? Your header is showing
6.00.2900.3138. The latest is 6.00.2900.5512.

--
Regards.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Bill in Co.]

No way. I generally don't do those "updates". (I've been around the
block waaaay too many times on that - so I say, "thanks, but no thanks").

And I could tell ya what to do with SP3, too, but my own "modesty" prevents
me from doing so here.

 

[MAP]

Earl Partridge wrote:

Trying to help a friend with her Dell Dimension 3000 machine. It
would not boot. I installed that hard drive into another machine as
a Slave and it was recognized. XP's Disk Management showed the drive
to be partitioned (or at least split) into
3 sections. The first simply shows 39 Meg Healthy, the second shows
(C 70 GB
(System) Healthy. I don't recall exactly what the third section
showed but it did
(and does) show 4.17 GB. I did delete that third section.

Now with that HD back in the original machine, it will boot after
being prompted to press F1 - Primary Drive 1 not found.

I tried several things with that 3rd section, but nothing eliminates
that prompt for F1.

I suspect that 3rd section was something unique with the Dell system.

Any thoughts?


Shut the computer down and unplug it,now remove the cmos battery,after about a minute put the battery back in and restart the computer. Does it still prompt for f1?

 

[windmap]

Enter dell BIOS setup by pressing f2 when you see the dell flashing screen
at startup.In setup - under maintainence - clear event logs then set CMOS
defaults.Also turn on the fast boot under Post behaviour.This should help.If
didnt locate the phone support number for your location from the mannual
shipped with computer.



Trying to help a friend with her Dell Dimension 3000 machine. It would not
boot.
I installed that hard drive into another machine as a Slave and it was
recognized.
XP's Disk Management showed the drive to be partitioned (or at least split)
into
3 sections. The first simply shows 39 Meg Healthy, the second shows (C 70
GB
(System) Healthy. I don't recall exactly what the third section showed but
it did
(and does) show 4.17 GB. I did delete that third section.

Now with that HD back in the original machine, it will boot after being
prompted to
press F1 - Primary Drive 1 not found.

I tried several things with that 3rd section, but nothing eliminates that
prompt for F1.

I suspect that 3rd section was something unique with the Dell system.

Any thoughts?

Earl