YIKES - Surprise Disc Re-Partition

Question

Not sure where to post this, hope this is a reasonable spot.

My system has mysteriously this morning changed the drive allocations. Without my say-so!!!!

Formerly:
C local hard drive 114439 MB
D DVD
E DVD/CD-RW
F external hard drive 152635 MB

Now
C local hard drive 114400 MB
D DVD
E DVD/CD-RW
F local hard drive 39 MB
G external hard drive 152635 MB

The new F partition appears to contain Dell support / diagnostic utilities etc.

All that has happened on my system recently is
installed ROXIO CD creator 6 yesterday*
rebooted this morning; there were "updates ready for your computer"

* I can see no indication in the ROXIO docs of it wanting to do anything like this.

Any ideas what's happend? I REALLY dont like things happening on my system that I dont know about.

One obvious problem is that many procedures currently accessing the F: drive have to be changed to access the G: drive.

Can I make this new F: drive go away? Do I need it?
Assuimg I do need it, can I reassign the drive letters to swap F & G?

RMJFlack · Answer

Thanks. Is this (undocumented and unannounced) messing with my system confuguration an indication of ROXIO software quality generally? I actually got it because the price was right (yes, my bad) for a tool that will write large backup sets acros multiple DVD volumes, unlike NT backup.

Can I safely remove this new partition?
Is it
harmful
totally redundant
marginally or rarely useful
really useful?

Where did the files on the new partition come from - ROXIO? But they look like DELL support stuff.

One side effect seems to be that because the partition is so small (200MB) it turns seems to turn off system restore on ALL drives. COuld I increase it but that seems a waste.

RMJFlack · Answer

Ok, Ill leave it there.

Where do I go to change the drive letter? Ive tried looking in what I thought were the obvious places, but no dice.

I appreciate the help ... Ill look into Ghost (Im using Norton antivirus etc already; Im not sure if Im a fan of Norton or not ... a whole 'nother topic which includes ccapp.exe .... :( )

rickmktg · Answer

@rmjflack wrote:
Thanks. Is this (undocumented and unannounced) messing with my system confuguration an indication of ROXIO software quality generally? I actually got it because the price was right (yes, my bad) for a tool that will write large backup sets acros multiple DVD volumes, unlike NT backup.

Can I safely remove this new partition?
Is it
harmful
totally redundant
marginally or rarely useful
really useful?

Where did the files on the new partition come from - ROXIO? But they look like DELL support stuff.

One side effect seems to be that because the partition is so small (200MB) it turns seems to turn off system restore on ALL drives. COuld I increase it but that seems a waste.
The partition was hidden, it is Dell diagnostics. Roxio unhides it. You should leave it alone.

If you bought Roxio software for backup purposes, I'd suggest you made the wrong purchase. Norton Ghost (or new Save & Restore) or Acronis True Image are more appropriate.

rickmktg · Answer

@rmjflack wrote:
Ok, Ill leave it there.

Where do I go to change the drive letter? Ive tried looking in what I thought were the obvious places, but no dice.

I appreciate the help ... Ill look into Ghost (Im using Norton antivirus etc already; Im not sure if Im a fan of Norton or not ... a whole 'nother topic which includes ccapp.exe .... :( )

Windows Disk Management allows you to reassign the letters.

rickmktg · Answer

@rmjflack wrote:
Not sure where to post this, hope this is a reasonable spot.

My system has mysteriously this morning changed the drive allocations. Without my say-so!!!!

Formerly:
C local hard drive 114439 MB
D DVD
E DVD/CD-RW
F external hard drive 152635 MB

Now
C local hard drive 114400 MB
D DVD
E DVD/CD-RW
F local hard drive 39 MB
G external hard drive 152635 MB

The new F partition appears to contain Dell support / diagnostic utilities etc.

All that has happened on my system recently is
installed ROXIO CD creator 6 yesterday*
rebooted this morning; there were "updates ready for your computer"

* I can see no indication in the ROXIO docs of it wanting to do anything like this.

Any ideas what's happend? I REALLY dont like things happening on my system that I dont know about.

One obvious problem is that many procedures currently accessing the F: drive have to be changed to access the G: drive.

Can I make this new F: drive go away? Do I need it?
Assuimg I do need it, can I reassign the drive letters to swap F & G?
A well-documented problem with Roxio installs.

Yes, you can reassign letters. Simply change G to H, F to G, then H to F.

RMJFlack · Answer

Looked there. When I right click on the new partion (the unhidden one) I dont get any "Change drive letter & path" option - the only item in the menu is Help.

I do for the other partitions. Is it because this partition has FAT File System?

RMJFlack · Answer

Having now spoken to someone who knows a lot more about this than I do it seems the culprit really is Dell rather than Roxio. Apparently this drive never should have been "hidden" in the first place. Then subsequently added external drives would not have been given drive letters out of sequence.

This formerly hidden drive cant be reformatted or reassigned as its an EISA drive. It seems Im stuck with the external drive being G (or higher).

So Im just going to have to change all those processes (backup jobs etc) that refer to the F drive to refer to G.

Oh well.

[Actually my tech friend suggested mapping the external drive to a letter further down, maybe not quite as far as Z - say M, in case any future additions of internal drives (which apparently get allocated letters first especially if the external drive ever gets disconnected) would bump what is now G to H or I or whatever ... in which case Id just remap to M again and those procedures wont need changing]

dg1261 · Answer

'Having now spoken to someone who knows a lot more about this than I do it seems the culprit really is Dell rather than Roxio.'   No, it's a long-standing Roxio problem.  No other CD/DVD burning software has the same trouble.   The Dell partition is not EISA.  It's an ordinary FAT16 partition, but it's 'hidden' in a Dell-proprietary manner.  You may debate the wisdom of using such a technique, but it is not uncommon.  Properly designed software has understood 'unknown' partitions should be left alone since the old DOS and CP/M days over two decades ago.  Even today, Windows and linux do not natively understand each other's partitions but they know enough to leave the other alone and coexist on the same disk.  Roxio is the one at fault here.

RMJFlack · Answer

Interesting, the Windows Disk Management screen says it is EISA. Oh well, this is all way over my head. Either way it seems Im stuck with this and uninstalling ROXIO wont put the toothpaste back in the tube.

Interestingly an hour ago I got an email from Norton for the 2006 edition renewal of the AV product, and Save / Recover for just $10 more!

dg1261 · Answer

The DellUtility partition is really a FAT16 partition. However, Dell changes the 'partition-type' indicator in the partition table to replace it with another (presumably obsolete) code Dell has unofficially usurped for its own purposes. This causes Windows (and many other non-Dell utilities) to misidentify the partition.

Similarly, Dell changes the type code of the PC-Restore partition at the end of your hard disk, which causes many utilities to think it is a "Concurrent/CTOS" partition instead of the ordinary FAT32 partition it really is.

Dell disguises these partitions because they do not want other programs tinkering with them. Properly designed software should know better and leave them alone.

Windows General

YIKES - Surprise Disc Re-Partition

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