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Dell XPS 2720 Drive Partitioning Question
I bought a used 2720 that the previous user reformatted using the Recovery Disk before sending it to me. It has a Samsung 32GB solidstate drive and a 2TB 7200 HDD. The problem is the put the Windows 8 Pro OS (29.3 GB NTFS) on the 32 GB drive, along with a 300MB recovery partition and a 99MB EFI partition. Consequently there is no space left to update the OS or add programs in their conventional default location (C://...).
I have the Recovery Disk. What is my best option? Did the OS really take up the entire 323GB?
Hoping to hear something soonest!! Thanks!!
JJ
beamermt79
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December 28th, 2015 17:00
The 32GB SSD is a cache drive and should only be used as such due to its small size. Using Intel's Rapid Storage technology, the SSD is 'combined' with the HDD and frequent programs and files are copied to the cache drive for faster access. Technically, the restore program should know this and install the OS to the HDD, leaving the SSD for the Intel software to pickup and use.
jjenco1974
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January 5th, 2016 19:00
Thanks. In the interim, I bought a Samsung EVO 250GB mSATA drive thinking that i would simply swap out the 32GB drive and be off and running. Now I find that the 32GB drive is 'combined' with the HDD, making my plan worthless.
I used the Recovery Disk to format Drive 0 Partition 1, which is the 1863GB HDD. I also formatted the 32GB mSATA Drive 1 Partitions 1,2, and 4 (would not let me format D1P3 as it's type was MSR (Reserved). Now, i find that I cannot install Windows 8 to D0P1 as it tells me that this drive has an MBR partition table and that on EFI systems, Windows can only be installed to GPT disks.
I'm now left with no bootable drives (except the Recovery Disk) and no way to install Windows except back onto the D1P4 29.2GB partition, which would take me exactly back to my starting point.
HELP!!
Thanks,
John