If I delete that partition is there something I have to do to reclaim that space for my main partition or is it automatically added to it?
I don't know the answer to the question however there are negative's to removing the utility partition:
* Dell phone support will want you to run the pretty much useless tests should you call in with a problem.
* You'll still see the option to boot to the utility partition, even if you've removed it because the option to boot to it is in the BIOS.
I don't know the answer to the question however there are negative's to removing the utility partition:* Dell phone support will want you to run the pretty much useless tests should you call in with a problem.
* You'll still see the option to boot to the utility partition, even if you've removed it because the option to boot to it is in the BIOS.
Ok, what about moving it so it's not at the start of the hard drive?
Ok, what about moving it so it's not at the start of the hard drive?
You probably already know that you've discovered a 3.5gb Ghost Image, installed on all new Dells at the very end of the drive.
To achieve what you want, you can delete that partition, reclaim the space, and create your own Ghost Image partition with Paragon 8. Or just reclaim the space.
I'm obviously repeating what I've read from the links below, but what I can say, is that the Paragon 8 "Wizard" menus make these operations relatively straightforward, and there is an option in the drop down menus to "move a partition". Maybe this is a possibility.
To get around this, I simply deleted the CP/M, Concurrent DOS, CTOS partition (using PM8) where DELL had stored its 3.5-GB back-up Ghost image and stretched the last logical DOS drive to reclaim this extra 3.5-GB of newly "unused space", where I created my own back-up Ghost image (two of them, actually).
Info obtained here:
Hope this helps.
You probably already know that you've discovered a 3.5gb Ghost Image, installed on all new Dells at the very end of the drive.
Thanks for the reply Dennis. It's not actually a large ghost image, its a 120Mb utility partition (Dell Utility Partition). I'm not really bothered about the space its taking up, the HD has far more space than I'll take up, just don't see the point of it being right at the start of the disk when it'll probably never be used. Might try HD Managers move partition function first and see if I can shift it to the end of the disk rather than delete it.
Although according to the link I don't really need it:
You may wish to recreate the DE partition if the hard disk is upgraded or replaced. For the record, installing delldiag on the hard disk is optional. It's the same program you can run from the Dell Resource CD (if one came with your computer, and if you can still find it). Many people are satisfied to just run the diagnostic utility from CD when necessary, but this section describes how to recreate the DE partition on the hard disk if you choose to do so.
I'm learning as I go along here JD, as I might have the same choices to make if I ever invest in a Laptop.
So Dell have either a Utility Partition or a Ghost Image, or could a new Laptop come with both on the HD? Rhetorical question, just thinking aloud.
Whatever you decide to do with that partition, Paragon make it relatively easy to do when you eventually suss out how to do it.
It took me a while to realise that the Wizards just set up the parameters of whatever operation you're doing, and then you have to click the green checkmark to set things away.
That's the way I did anything, and when I eventually realised I had to select the "Restart Now" option, I had no idea what came next.
Although, when the Paragon Engine took over after restarting, it seemed to know what it was doing, and the rest went like clockwork. Took a bit of time is all.
What puzzles me is why it wouldn't work for Tunerz? It worked fine on 4 different occasions for me.
I've still got all the screenshots of the different stages Paragon goes through if they would be of any help, (gone from previous Tunerz post after Imageshare closed).
Well I tried out the defrag in HD Manager and wasn't impressed at all. Two reasons - soooooo slow, took 20 mins to do what JKDefrag does in 2. And I didn't like where it chooses to place the pagefile, too close to the beginning of the disc for my liking, and there seems to be no option of leaving the pagefile where it is on disk (would be a cool addition to the program to give the user a choice of where to place the pagefile on the disc). The one positive is the defrag MFT option which no free defragger that I'm aware of has, and as this can be run independently of the main defrag that function will get some use.
I've yet to move that Dell Utility partition yet though (been busy with a reinstall on gf's laptop ).
Edited by poster. Misinformed.
There's been a lot of defraggers talked about on here, and some of them recommended, and it's not easy for us ordinary mortals to tell which is best, or more importantly, which to steer clear of.
Any input would be appreciated.
If they claim to use the Microsoft Defrag API like most of them I've seen they're "probably safe." The stability of some of them is another issue in itself.
Edited by poster. Misinformed.
Apologies.
Well one last comment on this, and a word of warning. I used the Paragon defragger again the other day, it said it was gonna take 4 hours. Didn't have time for that so I hit escape to cancel the defrag (as it says to do at the bottom of the window). Computer restarted and nothing - Windows was gone.
So be careful if using the defragger and probably best to avoid cancelling the defrag once it starts.
On the plus side, as my Windows was trashed I decided to partition my HD for the first time (before Windows install, not with Paragon) and did it without a problem. Why I didn't do this sooner I don't know but I'm extremely glad I have.
I then gave Paragon a bit more use for its main purpose. Tried to move that Dell partition but Paragon couldn't do it for some reason (didn't give any clue why) so just deleted it instead and successfully, if somewhat nervously, used Paragon to reclaim the unallocated disk space to one of my partitions.
Certainly seems like a very useful program to have but I'll be steering well clear of it's defragger from now on.