Partitioning New Dell with Partition Magic 7

[Keith Cocker]

Hello,

I've just got a new Dell Dimension 8400 and I am trying to partition the Hard Disk with Partition Magic v7. I have used this with no problem on my two previous Dell's but this new one just won't have it! I have attached some screenshots, It tells me that I cant use the wizard because sections of the disc are unmoveable and also the create otion on the Menu is greyed out. The disc map shows "stuff" that doesn't appear on the other Dell's that I have succesfully partitioned. Can any experts shed any light on this. I phoned Dell but the nice lady in India was unable to help!

Thanks

[Tom Nolle]

Most of the PC vendors now put their backup CDs on the hard drive as a partition (it's your first one), and they may be inhibiting customers from trashing it by accident.

Tom

[Swampy]

They put some (as you can see by the name of the partition) utilities at the very begining of the hard drive where most programs like Partition Magic would do thier, uh, magic. You HAVE to have this partition as it contains info for the bios among other things used in booting the system. The 4th partition - the one marked "CP/M blah blah blah" is, as Tom said, an image used for restoring the OS to factory fresh (most of the time wiping out all of your data as well).

You're getting about all you can get from your drive in this configuration so I wouldn't sweat it.

[Keith Cocker]

Thanks Tom & Swampy,

That's very helpful. I have just now put a 300Gig Second drive in and am hapilly partioning away with partition Magic.

best wishes :) :)

[robinp]

Just as well you had no luck with Partition Magic 7 - it can make a real mess of systems running XP, you need Partion Magic 8 to be safe.
BTW where I work "Dell" is a "four letter word"!

Cheers, Robin