On Sunday 03 October 2004 17.18, Donald D Henson wrote:

Deleting the non-standard partition was one of the first things I tried. How did you delete it?

Allen K wrote:

...

Most of the time it's for when you reinstall Windows. My Compaq and my Dell have one....Heh, HAD one. On my Dell Laptop, I deleted it, renstalled XP, and installed Linux to dual boot. On my Compaq Presario, GONE, deleted it, and installed Slackware Linux. I tested to see if Windows would still install if needed and it does.

If you want you can delete it, you'll of course have to reofrmat to reinstall Windows like you would anyway, to me they are a waste of space.

On Sat, 2004-10-02 at 16:50, Donald D Henson wrote:

...

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this but I don't seem to be able to get a clear answer from the other lists I have tried, lists to remain nameless.

I want to repartition a hard drive to make room for Linux partitions in a dual-boot configuration. I tried using Partition Magic but it reports a non-standard partition and exits without making any changes. I have discovered that both Dell and Compaq create non-standard hidden partitions on their hard drives, the reason apparently open to debate. Does anyone know how to get around this non-standard partition? I'd appreciate any assistance here.

-- Donald D. Henson, Managing Director West El Paso Information Network The "Non-Initiation of Force Principle" Rules

-- Donald D. Henson, Managing Director West El Paso Information Network The "Non-Initiation of Force Principle" Rules

The "hidden" parttiton on a DELL is a ""dell system" partition. They (at least USED to hide different programs there to check the system in case of a crash. It was reached by a special CD/floopy... And some other odd sytems used that partitin idea for BIOS setup facilities. But as far as i know, you can erase it. -- /Rikard ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rikard Johnels email : rikjoh@norweb.se Web : http://www.rikjoh.com Mob : +46 735 05 51 01 ------------------------ Public PGP fingerprint ---------------------------- < 15 28 DF 78 67 98 B2 16 1F D3 FD C5 59 D4 B6 78 46 1C EE 56 >

On Sunday 03 October 2004 18.23, Terence McCarthy wrote:

On Sun, 3 Oct 2004 17:34:16 +0200

Rikard Johnels wrote:

...

The "hidden" parttiton on a DELL is a ""dell system" partition. They (at least USED to hide different programs there to check the system in case of a crash.

Rikard,

We're talking Windoze here- you mean "when it crashes again."....

Terence

Tried to be diplomatic.... -- /Rikard ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rikard Johnels email : rikjoh@norweb.se Web : http://www.rikjoh.com Mob : +46 735 05 51 01 ------------------------ Public PGP fingerprint ---------------------------- < 15 28 DF 78 67 98 B2 16 1F D3 FD C5 59 D4 B6 78 46 1C EE 56 >

Deleting the non-standard partition was one of the first things I tried. How did you delete it? ither SUSE or Slackware, load the CD at boot, when it comes to the

On Sun, 2004-10-03 at 11:18, Donald D Henson wrote: partition screen, delete it.

Allen K wrote:

...

Most of the time it's for when you reinstall Windows. My Compaq and my Dell have one....Heh, HAD one. On my Dell Laptop, I deleted it, renstalled XP, and installed Linux to dual boot. On my Compaq Presario, GONE, deleted it, and installed Slackware Linux. I tested to see if Windows would still install if needed and it does.

If you want you can delete it, you'll of course have to reofrmat to reinstall Windows like you would anyway, to me they are a waste of space.

On Sat, 2004-10-02 at 16:50, Donald D Henson wrote:

...

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this but I don't seem to be able to get a clear answer from the other lists I have tried, lists to remain nameless.

I want to repartition a hard drive to make room for Linux partitions in a dual-boot configuration. I tried using Partition Magic but it reports a non-standard partition and exits without making any changes. I have discovered that both Dell and Compaq create non-standard hidden partitions on their hard drives, the reason apparently open to debate. Does anyone know how to get around this non-standard partition? I'd appreciate any assistance here.

-- Donald D. Henson, Managing Director West El Paso Information Network The "Non-Initiation of Force Principle" Rules

-- Donald D. Henson, Managing Director West El Paso Information Network The "Non-Initiation of Force Principle" Rules --

http://www.cannibalholocaust.net http://www.misfits.com http://www.onethirtyeight.net http://www.suse.com http://www.slackware.com http://www.linux.org http://www.linuxiso.org http://www.gnu.org http://www.freebsd.org http://www.bsd.org http://www.antionline.com

On Sun, 3 Oct 2004 18:57:16 -0400, Fred Miller wrote:

On Sunday October 3 2004 11:18 am, Donald D Henson wrote:

...

Deleting the non-standard partition was one of the first things I tried. How did you delete it?

You can use the "expert" settings in SUSE to get rid of ALL partitions, and create new ones.

I think Donald mentioned that he wanted a dual-boot configuration. So, deleting ALL partitions is not the right thing to do. Osho

On 02-Oct-04 Fred Miller wrote:

On Saturday October 2 2004 4:50 pm, Donald D Henson wrote:

...

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this but I don't seem to be able to get a clear answer from the other lists I have tried, lists to remain nameless.

I want to repartition a hard drive to make room for Linux partitions in a dual-boot configuration. I tried using Partition Magic but it reports a non-standard partition and exits without making any changes. I have discovered that both Dell and Compaq create non-standard hidden partitions on their hard drives, the reason apparently open to debate. Does anyone know how to get around this non-standard partition? I'd appreciate any assistance here.

Those partitians are used for data to "restore" your MickySoft system to exactly what it was when the box was shipped. This, PROVIDING you haven't changed the config. of that drive. IF you've changed the original config. of the drive, then it won't restore. OEMS do this because they only furnish a LIMITED OS from MickySoft - NOT the full copy. It's best to just blow away all MickySoft, replace with SUSE and be done with it.

Fred

What Fred says may be true in itself (I don't know), but it may not be the full story. I bought a Compaq Armada secondhand (from a re-seller who had wiped the original corprate owner's stuff clean off the disk and installed Windows), and lacking the printed manual I downloaded one from the web. It appears that Compaq at least (I don't know about Dell) have a hidden partition on the drive on which is stored their proprietary BIOS setup and diagnostic software. This can be accessed during the BIOS phase of boot-up by pressing F10 "when the blinking cursor appears in the upper-right corner of the screen" according to the reference manual. On the machine I had purchased, this didn't work and it seemed that there was no such partition. Fortunately there was also a ZIP file of the BIOS setup/diagnostics setup software downloadable from the Conmpaq site. Once unzipped, this fits onto a bootable floppy from which you can run it. You also have the option to re-install it from the floppy onto the hard drive (which I declined since I already had Linux up and running by now). So that's my theory about hidden partitions on Conpaq drives. There should certainly be one for Compaq's BIOS software, though you can manage without it. There might also be one for restoring Windows as Fred describes, but I'd advise people with Donald Henson's query in mind not to assume that it's the only one, and "blow it away" -- you may deprive yourself of the BIOS setup stuff. If you have an Armada 1750, I don't know if it's still possible to download the ZIP file any more. Maybe if someone is stuck for this they could drop me a private email and I could send it as an attachment if you're desperate: it's a 1664924 byte file and it includes compaq-bios.img which is a 1474560-byte floppy image. Best wishes to all, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 [NB: New number!] Date: 03-Oct-04 Time: 10:43:43 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------