one 118Mb not labelled EISA-configuration:  This is the dell diagnostics partition.  While not essential, it can be useful to have as it allows you to easily test the system (F12 at the Dell screen)

 

and one 2,50 Gb not labelled Primary partition:  I have no idea what this is?  Is it empty?

 

Then I got the 168 Gb (OS) c-disk:    Obviously this is XP

 

10 Gb Recovery d-disk:  This is for factory restore.  It allows your system to be returned to its factory shipped state.  Though resizing partitions and moving them around may make it impossible to use automatically, it can still be useful to keep if you ever want to revert your system.

 

 

Again, what is that 2.50GB partition?  If it's empty, it might be worth deleting and consolodating.  As far as I know, you're only allowed 4 real partitions.

Thanks for your reply. I used 3 hour to scan the internet about this problem, it looks like I´m not alone with this problem, but there also looks like there is no solution. What I have done is that I moved the recovery-files to my external harddrive. This makes the D-partition only 10 Gb and can´t be put together with the OS-partition.

 

The 2,5 Gb partition is empty, why? I don´t know, maybe someone from Dell can explain what this partition is for. If its not necessery I will delete the parttion and use the space to the OS-partition and then shrink it to a new partition of about 50 Gb. Then I can install XP on the 10 Gb partition and use the 50 Gb for install programs and dual boot with Vista on the OS-partition.ace to the OS-partition and then shrink it to a new partition of about 50 Gb. Then I can install XP on the 10 Gb partition and use the 50 Gb for install programs and dual boot with Vista on the OS-partition.

 

Do anyone have suggestions about what the 2,5 Gb partition is for?

 

Thanks

/Patrik

First, you really want to be using a better partition management tool than Vista. It isn't really stable for this kind of task.

 

But to address your problem:

 

Background

A hard disk's partition table, which is an index to the disk's partitions, has room for no more than four entries. That's the source of the infamous "no more than four partitions" rule. Even if you could create more than four partitions, if only four can be listed in the index, anything unlisted would be completely inaccessible.

The way around this is to make one of the four partitions an "Extended" type. The Extended partition can then be subdivided into (one or more) "logical volumes", sometimes referred to as "logical partitions". In essence, an Extended partition is nothing more than a container for multiple logical partitions. The Extended partition is listed in the master (aka, "primary") partition table at the front of the disk, while the logical partitions are listed in secondary partition tables within the Extended partition itself. In this manner, it's possible to have more than four partitions overall.

Take a look at the map of your partitions in Windows Disk Management. In the lower-right portion of the Disk Management window you will see a graphical schematic of "Disk 0", with partitions represented as colored blocks. You should see a thin border (IIRC, it's a green border) surrounding the last block. That border demarcates the Extended partition, and anything within it is a logical partition. The blocks outside the green border are primary partitions. (You'll usually see only one block inside the green border on a default Dell layout, but it is possible to have more.)

Dell's Vista Laptops

 

Your original partition layout, which is typical of Dell, includes:

 

1. primary: 118MB "EISA" (actually, a FAT16 Dell Utility partition)
2. primary: 10 GB "Recovery" (the Vista recovery partition)
3. primary: 220 GB partition for Vista
4. extended: 2.5 GB container encompassing:

• 2.5 GB NTFS partition for MediaDirect 3.

 

Note you already have four primary partitions, with the 4th being an Extended partition containing a single logical partition.

 

Repartitioning

 

In your case, you've suceeded in shrinking partition 3 to leave:

 

1. primary: 118MB "EISA" (actually, a FAT16 Dell Utility partition)
2. primary: 10 GB "Recovery" (the Vista recovery partition)
3. primary: 168 GB partition for Vista
   (unallocated: 52 GB of free disk space)
4. extended: 2.5 GB container encompassing:

• 2.5 GB NTFS partition for MediaDirect 3.

The problem is you can't turn that unallocated space into another primary partition because you already have all four slots of the partition table taken up.

 

But you can turn it into another logical partition:

 

1. primary: 118MB "EISA" (actually, a FAT16 Dell Utility partition)
2. primary: 10 GB "Recovery" (the Vista recovery partition)
3. primary: 168 GB partition for Vista
4. extended: 54.5 GB container encompassing:

• 52 GB NTFS partition for XP
• 2.5 GB NTFS partition for MediaDirect 3.

 

You've already shrunk partition 3 from the back end, but now you need to move the front end of partition 4 to take up the slack. This puts the unallocated space inside the Extended partition, where then you can turn it into another logical partition.

 

(Note: This is the part where using a better partitioning tool comes in. Depending on which partitioning tool you use, those last two steps might be done together.)

Note that if you use Microsoft's bootloader to manage dualbooting, a logical partition is sufficient for XP. You need a primary partition for the bootloader, but you've got that already--the bootloader is in partition 3. The Vista bootloader can load XP from a logical partition.

 

(Disclaimer: I personally don't care for the Microsoft method of pseudo dualbooting, preferring to use true multibooting. But most instructions you'll follow on the 'net will assume you're doing it Microsoft's way, and it does have the advantage that you don't need another primary partition for XP, as true multibooting would require.)

 

 

See also:

Primary, Extended and Logical Partitions

 

Dan Goodell

Understanding Multibooting

Inside the Dell Utility Partition

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks Dan, I´ve learned alot reading your answer.

I have now a fullyfunctionell dual boot-installation on my computer. The 2,5 Gb-partition is deleted and I now have 3 partitions, one for Vista, one for XP and one for film, music, temp downloads....

 

Regards /P

Hi dg126

 

this has been by far the most valuable reply I had came accress for the last 48 hrs while surfing for solution

are you a Gentoo or Debian user ? 

 

How should your solution be adapted for Linux, for Ubuntu to be the second (actually third with MD included) system instead of XP ? Grub should be installed on primary, not logical - right ?

 

I plann the following operation:

- removing the 10 GB recovery partition
- making new 5-7 GB primary as ext3 to be mounted at /
- shrinking the Vista primary to free around 100 GB

- combining the released 103 GB under extended, by

- making another two logica partitions:
swap 2 GB, and
/home 101 GB as reiserFS

Grub to be installed on the 5-7 GB primary together with /

 

so before:

1. primary: 118MB "EISA" (actually, a FAT16 Dell Utility partition)
2. primary: 10 GB "Recovery" (the Vista recovery partition)
3. primary: 220 GB partition for Vista
4. extended: 2.5 GB container encompassing:

• 2.5 GB NTFS partition for MediaDirect 3.
  
  after
  

1. primary: 118MB "EISA" (actually, a FAT16 Dell Utility partition)
2. primary: 7 GB Ubuntu ext3 at /
3. primary: 40 GB partition for Vista (resized)
4. extended: 2.5 GB container encompassing:

• 2.5 GB NTFS partition for MediaDirect 3.
• 2 GB swap
• 101 GB Ubuntu reiserFS at /home
  
  Will this work ? Or hitting MD button afterwards will demolish the repartitioning ?
  
  Thanks for your remarks,
  rafal