What are these Partitions?

Question

I'm trying to help out a friend who bought a Dell Dem 3000 from a friend.  The system is infected with all kinds of Malware and I've given up on getting them cleaned up as I'm tiring of this game of 'Wack-a-Trojan'.   I plan to format and then reinstall the O/S.  I see that the physical disk has 3 partitions:  EISA Config (39 GB FAT), System (71 GB NTFS), and Unknown (3.46 GB FAT).  I've haven't been able to locate information on what the 2 non system partitions are to know if I should format them too, or keep them.   Can anyone shed some light on this please?   Thanks!

shesagordie · Answer

bigten333   The 39mb is Dell's Hidden EISA Partition, that has diagnostics and the 3.46gb unknown partition has Dell PC Restore by Symantec.   The procedures for using this are here,     http://www.djdenham.com/New%20user%20questions.htm#PCRestore   Bev.

DoubleDaffy · Answer

I believe that the EISA partition is used for diagnostics and system restoring. I'm not sure what your unknown partition is, but it may just be unused space. Best Regards~Justin~

bigten333 · Answer

Thanks to you both!   Does the recovery system include a format of the partition?  I'm a bit afraid of not wiping it clean with all the problems it has.   Can the recovery system be used more than once? Message Edited by bigten333 on 10-17-2006 03:48 PM

shesagordie · Answer

bigten333   Yes, it should wipe the hard drive and return the system to it's factory condition.   The Dell System Restore by Symantec can be used for as many times as you like, providing the hard drive has not failed or the DSR has not been made unusable, see the following,   http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dsn/en/document?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&dn=1090198   Bev.

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