Dell Machine H/D partitions

[Guest]

I recently installed Partition Magic on my Dell computer. I created a
logical drive. In so doing, PM showed me additional "hidden" partitons on
the drive. At the beginning was a partition titled Dellutility, (Fat), total
size 55mb, used 7.4mb. At the end was a partition titled Local Disk which
PM said was "other" and said"CP/M, Concurrent Dos, CTOS", total size 2816mb,
used 2816mb. Can you tell me what each partition is and if there is any way
to read the information in these partitions? What would be the result of
deleting either? Thank you

 

[Ron Chamberlin]

Hi Bill,
Right off the top, I can tell you that the first Dellutility partition is a
diagnostic one installed by Dell. better to keep it there and alive in case
you need to make a support call to them.

Ron Chamberlin
MS-MVP

 

[Kevin]

Dell Utility. Self explanatory. That 2.8 GB partition is the hidden
partition your recovery disk will use to restore your Dell to the "as
purchased" condition. Hmmm. I thought Dell was one of the remaining few
makers that included an OEM Windows disk. Maybe not.

 

[Sunny]

Dell Utility. Self explanatory. That 2.8 GB partition is the hidden
partition your recovery disk will use to restore your Dell to the "as
purchased" condition. Hmmm. I thought Dell was one of the remaining few
makers that included an OEM Windows disk. Maybe not.

Real handy if you have to replace the hard drive

 

[Steve N.]

Real handy if you have to replace the hard drive

And ironic if you get a blank replacement drive from Dell. I haven't
seen a new Dell in a while but every one I have seen in the past
fortunately came with an OEM XP CD and Drivers/Utility CD.

Steve

 

[Guest]

Thank you, any idea about the second larger partition labeled
"CP/M,Concurrent Dos, CTOS? Thank you

 

[Juan C. Reyes]

Interesting....

I recently reformatted my 2 year old Dell. It came with reinstall disks, so
it was easy. When I went to reformat the HDD, I had two partitions:

1. NTFS (this was labeled as C: and was the main partition with the O/S
installed.
2. FAT32 (or something like that....it had no drive designation and only
took up a few megs of space. I did not delete that one.

I assume the FAT32 was information/utilitites about the HDD itself? Dunno.

Juan

| I recently installed Partition Magic on my Dell computer. I created a
| logical drive. In so doing, PM showed me additional "hidden" partitons on
| the drive. At the beginning was a partition titled Dellutility, (Fat),
total
| size 55mb, used 7.4mb. At the end was a partition titled Local Disk which
| PM said was "other" and said"CP/M, Concurrent Dos, CTOS", total size
2816mb,
| used 2816mb. Can you tell me what each partition is and if there is any
way
| to read the information in these partitions? What would be the result of
| deleting either? Thank you
|

 

[Steve N.]

Interesting....

I recently reformatted my 2 year old Dell. It came with reinstall disks, so
it was easy. When I went to reformat the HDD, I had two partitions:

1. NTFS (this was labeled as C: and was the main partition with the O/S
installed.
2. FAT32 (or something like that....it had no drive designation and only
took up a few megs of space. I did not delete that one.

I assume the FAT32 was information/utilitites about the HDD itself? Dunno.

Juan

It contains diagnostic utilities that Dell tech support can have you
boot into if needed. The same utilities are on the Dell Drivers and
Utilities CD so the partition isn't absolutely necessary as long as you
don't lose or damge the Utilities CD.

Steve