Dell Restore Disk

I have tried a Restore CD for Dell laptop that I have. I am running Windows XP SP2. I checked in another thread, a refrence to possible issues with deleting the hidden partitions that Dell has on their laptops. There are 2, but I dont recall the sizes, though both are small. Will I be able to delete the partitions on the HD so, I can partition it? It looks the hidden partitions are keeping me from partitioning the disk with Partition Magic. Will I be needing anything in those 2 hidden partitions? Am I going to have issues with booting in the near future? Thanks

I also have a Dell laptop and the small one has the MBR. Incase you delete this partition, then you might have problem. On my Dell, the large partition has hardware diagnostics. Dell also sent along a CD with the diagnostics. This all partition may be deleted, but before you do so make sure that you have the diagnostic CD. On my dell, the large partition is the recovery partition. I dont want to delete such a partition.

You can also get the indication of the presence of a restore parition by a message when you hit the F11 key to restore. When you delete the partition through normal means, then it does not remove the MBR modification that gives the message. Most of the times OEMs; (Dell) provide an utility to copy the restore partition to removeable media (CD/DVD) and another which deletes the partition and MBR change.

Check out the acronis True Image can copy all of those, and is probably the best way to go on making backups of the system. Or if someone had deleted that Dell System Restore partition, perhaps one can just modify the "boot.ini" file to fix this, so that it will boot properly. I'm assuming the boot sequence can be redirected to the C:windows installation by doing this, but I'm not sure.

I am using Partition Magic on a Dell and its partition, and I am able to repartition it by adding more space and not messing with the Dell paritions.