F: HD Partition? Whats that for?

Question

There is a F: partition on my Harddrive thats only 35mb large. (I have 1 HD thats 40 gb) What is the partition for? Should it be there?

I am having problems with Restore as it wont create restore points, its says due to inadequate HD space when I have 18 Giga Byte of free space on the drive. Could this small partition have something to do with that problem?

Thank you
robert

Denny Denham · Answer

rkruz,

That little FAT partition is installed by Dell at the factory. It contains your diagnostics and is normally a hidden partition. It is not contributing to the problem with System Restore.

The Restore data may be corrupted. To attempt to correct this, disable system restore (Start|Control Panel|System|System Restore tab) and reboot. Then enable System Restore again and try to create a restore point manually then restore to it.

rkruz · Answer

Ill give it a go. thank you for the insight. robert

gryjhnhpe · Answer

If Disk Management shows less than 2 MB used , ie: Capacity 35MB - Free Space = used space ,
then the FAT partition can't be accessed at boot by pressing a Function key.
Then the FAT partition can be Deleted at next reinstallation of XP OS by using XP CD.

My Inspiron 2600 showed a FAT partition of Capacity 32MB & Free Space of 31MB so 1MB used.
The Diagnostics are about 4MB so not of the FAT partition of this computer.
So I Deleted the FAT partition at next reinstallation of XP by using reinstallation XP CD.
No problem after Deleting FAT partition.
My 2600 Diagnostics are accessed by boot of my Drivers & Utility's (Resource) CD

My new computer Inspiron 1100 shows FAT partition of Capacity 39MB & Free Space of 32MB so 5MB used.
The partition can be accessed at boot by pressing a Function key so it remains.
(the Diagnostics can also be accessed by boot of Drivers & Utility's (Resource) CD)

Message Edited by gryjhnhpe on 12-16-2003 09:22 AM

msgale · Answer

There is a weird issue here, I have had the diagnostic partition on three systems, and never, without user intervention, has it had a drive letter.  In an semi-unrelated point, the partition is on the system disks even if no OS is installed by Dell

gryjhnhpe · Answer

@rkruz wrote:
There is a F: partition on my Harddrive thats only 35mb large. (I have 1 HD thats 40 gb) What is the partition for? Should it be there?

I assumed the Poster meant by F: partition , FAT partition., F being abbreviation for FAT. ?

rkruz · Answer

Nope....I meant a 'F:' partition.....as in a F: drive.

rkruz · Answer

no. the first time I saw it was when I tried to figure out why my system (xp) would not keep more then a day of restore points. The F drive would show up in the restore setup menu. I understand its other wise invisible to users.

Restore works now, I think becuase I set the F partion to not perform a Restore point. Restore needs 200mb and the partion was only 35mb. Thats my guess as to what fixed it. Im not brave enough to mess with it while it seems to be working again.

The other thing I did was increase my available C: drive space from 18 to 23 GB. As restore requires about 200mb, I wouldnt think that would have made a difference but I changed the restore on F and removed files. And then restore started working again.

RK

gryjhnhpe · Answer

OK sorry as other member said never seen DELL installed FAT partition with Drive letter. Does it show in Disk Management under 'Volume'  (F:) .?

Windows General

F: HD Partition? Whats that for?

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