[ssilk]

Hi,

I'm about to reinstall Win XP (clean install) on my computer (specs in signature). On my 60 GB hard drive, there is an NTFS main partition that XP is currently on, and which takes up most of the space. Then, there is a 39 MB FAT partition that is not visible from within Windows, and another 8 MB of unpartitioned space.

What's the deal? Delete them all, or leave the extra on and the unpartitioned space? Or does XP take care of these for me?

Thanks.

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Hi ssilk...

All of the Dell computers I have worked on lately have shown the very partitions you describe. The one I have on my bench right now shows an unnamed partition of 47 MB (FAT), a C partition of 33.7 GB (NTFS), and an Unknown partition of 3.2 GB (FAT32). (as reported in Disk Management). Only the C partition is shown in My Computer. Sound about right to you?

I wouldn't swear to it, and maybe someone can steer us the right direction if I'm wrong, but I think these are Dell's recovery files and, perhaps, the cd images to create a recovery cd set.

I just formatted the C partition and reinstalled XP on that...leaving the other partitions intact on the machine I'm working on.

wannabe1

Edited by wannabe1, 12 January 2006 - 02:59 PM.

[wannabe1]

Hi ssilk...

All of the Dell computers I have worked on lately have shown the very partitions you describe. The one I have on my bench right now shows an unnamed partition of 47 MB (FAT), a C partition of 33.7 GB (NTFS), and an Unknown partition of 3.2 GB (FAT32). (as reported in Disk Management). Only the C partition is shown in My Computer. Sound about right to you?

I wouldn't swear to it, and maybe someone can steer us the right direction if I'm wrong, but I think these are Dell's recovery files and, perhaps, the cd images to create a recovery cd set.

I just formatted the C partition and reinstalled XP on that...leaving the other partitions intact on the machine I'm working on.

wannabe1

Edited by wannabe1, 12 January 2006 - 02:59 PM.

[dsenette]

yup..that's the recovery partition....that partition is the way that the dell recovery disk works...it contains all the drivers and stuff like that...do as wannabe says and just leave those other two drives alone...