[nflug] wtf is up with this %$#@*& "dell restore" partition

[Robert Meyer]

Yeah, this is how Dell reloads machines that have their O/S hosed.  The 6M partition is Dell Diagnostics which you can typically get to with <F12> on startup (at least on a Dimension XPS).  The Bigger partition is a base Dell install file that the restore utility in the diag partition can read to put the hard drive back together just the way that Dell made it.  This is how they get away with not sending CDs with the machines any more.

I know all of this 'cuz a good friend just used a disk wiper program on an XPS and vaporized the machine.  She had to have Dell send a CD so that she could put those two partitions back together.

Typically, if you hose your Dell, the tech guy is going to have you go to diags and restore it, dumping your data.  He'll then berate you for not backing up your data.

If you wipe it, then Dell will disavow all knowledge of your existence... Good luck, Mr. Phelps.

Cheers!

Bob

----- Original Message ----
From: Stephen Burke <qfwfq at adelphia.net>
To: nflug at nflug.org
Sent: Tuesday, December 19, 2006 5:37:09 PM
Subject: [nflug] wtf is up with this %$#@*& "dell restore" partition

All the recent talk here about ntfsresize as a helpful tool to make new 
laptops actually useful some of the time inspired me to attack an 
inspiron b120 which been an M$+dell nightmare for the last half year or 
so. I have the latest knoppix for parted (as suggested somewhere I was 
reading about ntfsresize), and the thing's got a 40G drive, so there's 
plenty of space. But when I open parted, instead of the big ntfs 
partition I expected, there are 2 MORE parts in there - a small (6M or 
so) fat16 at the start and a 3G fat32 at the end called "dell restore".
At first I thought I could just burn the 3G one to a dvd and then kill 
it, but there's only a dvd reader in there, so I thought to share it to 
a machine that HAS a dvd burner, but I can't find it anywhere in XP 
except in the disk manager there, and I can't share from there. ;-)

Any ideas on what this thing is, eating up a healthy chunk of my hard 
drive? Whether I need it? WTF is on it? Clearly dell has taken pains to 
hide it. Do I juat let dell jack me for 3 gigs, or do I wipe it off 
there because it's some sort of timebomb set to go off when gates and 
dell finally take off the gloves and start battling for Master of the 
Universe?

Having that extra 3 gigs would be nice, but I expect about twelve dell 
lawyers to start calling me an sending me nasty letters as soon as the 
M$ servers find out that they can't scan my shit the way they used to.

Thanks,
S.
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