I have the same problem, did you find an answer ....?

I have the same problem, did you find an answer ....?

I never received an answer. I just wiped the drive and reinstalled from the CDs. Seems to work fine. I did have 2 blue screens prior to this but they have not reoccurred, Sorry I couldn't be more helpful.

[quote user="generalhandgrenade"] I have the same problem, did you find an answer ....?

I never received an answer. I just wiped the drive and reinstalled from the CDs. Seems to work fine. I did have 2 blue screens prior to this but they have not reoccurred, Sorry I couldn't be more helpful.

[/quote]

This is your thread, correct?

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/t/19328989.aspx

I've sent out an email trying to find out.

Gosh I hoope you find an answer Todd. I have the same problem, my C drive is almost full and my D empty. There is no way I could reinstall the operating system, I just wouldnt be game. And I've just had a huge printer/copier networked to this laptop so dont want to loose all those settings. :emotion-18:

My mom just purchased a new Inspiron that was set up the same way.  Dell support told her they could reconfigure the drive but she'd have to sign up (and pay) for some type of support service.   How does a company get away with selling you something that is basically unusable and then offer to "fix" it for you for a fee?   I was going to buy my daughter a new Dell PC for college but now I'm having second thoughts.

Whan I called dell tech support, they were willing to walk me thru the hard drive repartition process, over the phone for free , I had to ask for a supervisor but the first thing they told me to do was image the drive and call back, there should be no fee for this .......

Please do not fdisk/format the PC. We are researching a fix and will post it as soon as possible.

Go here.

Every Dell laptop in my inventory, and probably every laptop in Staples current inventory, is configured this way. (I didn't check the desktop systems.) I can't imagine the customer relation issues that will ensue from this screw up.

I know the mantra, "It's not a mistake, not a problem, it's a 'feature'  but you don't hand "Joe or Jane Consumer" a system configured like this and expect him/her to understand it.

Not that it matters, but I'd like to know how these kinds of things happen.

So, to summirize it for original poster(s): Don't be in a hurry to remove that D: drive, it's easy to do - just follow the link above but it's much better to learn to use the drive. It's quite useful and if you go ahead and remove it you just remove (voluntarily!)  some useful functionality from your machine.

Basically, Dell has configured the drives quite right. Perhaps it should have helped the users to understand how best to use them but then, to be fair, it's not in the business of educating end users.