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General discussion

I don't know if it's safe to delete.

Jun 17, 2006 5:09AM PDT

Hey, I have a dell computer...bottom of the line, we wont even mention it, but anyway...the HDD is only 40GB and well, that isnt that much room. I went in to disk management and it says there are 2 partitions on my HDD. One is my normal C: drive which has 34GB, and there are only 5 left haha. The other is 3GB FAT32 partition and it even says in parenthesis unknown partition. Is this safe to delete?

Discussion is locked

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safe to delete
Jun 17, 2006 8:58AM PDT

that partition contains the restoral files for the computer. delete if you want to but you'll never be able to restore the pc in case of a failure.

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Better Buy New HDD
Jun 20, 2006 5:08PM PDT

it seems to me u don't know what fat32 is.
i think wikipedia.org will explain it better than i'll do. maybe after that u'll understand meaning and purpose of it and will change ur mind.
Anyway , if any questions arise do not hesitate to ask.
regards

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why buy a new one?
Jun 22, 2006 1:57AM PDT

actually my HDD is just formatted all in NTFS. I'm not using FAT32 for anything at all except backup files. And there's no point in deleting my backup files now because I can't exactly merge the 2 partitions.

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Windows XP CD will do it
Jun 22, 2006 3:04AM PDT

What is the model number of your Dell computer?
Did the computer come from Dell with the FAT32 partition?
Have you confirmed whether that partition is a restore partition?

A hard disk that full will lower overall system performance. That is why it may be a good idea to purchase a larger HD. If you don't want a new one, I would backup all important files to CD/DVD (or whatever external storage you have) and perform a fresh installation of Windows XP. During the installation, you will have the option to remove all partitions. Create one partition and install Windows XP. Mission accomplished.

Do you have the Dell Windows XP restoration CD? Do you have the Dell driver CD? You need these discs.

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Well the thing is
Jun 22, 2006 7:47AM PDT

I dont wanna reformat and whatnot. So, for now I can't really do much, I have cleared up some space though. One of these days I will grab a new HDD, but that requires money haha.

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Do you want remove the second partition?
Jun 22, 2006 9:21AM PDT

Maybe I'm confused here. What is it that you want to do?

If you want to resize or delete a partition, that will always run the risk of damaging the OS installation; and if damaged, it is likely you will need to reinstall EVERYTHING.

If you want to pay money to resize/delete the partition, Partition Magic will do it. Otherwise, removing the second partition by using the Windows XP CD is free, but you will have to reinstall the OS, drivers, all programs, and personal files.