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Dell Laptop Partitions

I've recently received a Dell Inspiron Laptop, I'm having some difficulties understanding some of the partitions' purpoise. Here's an output of `fdisk -l`:

Code:



Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes



  Device Boot      Start        End      Blocks  Id  System

/dev/sda1              1          15      120456  de  Dell Utility

/dev/sda2              16        1321    10485760    7  HPFS/NTFS

/dev/sda3  *        1321        4052    21937500    7  HPFS/NTFS

/dev/sda4            4053        9730    45601911+  f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)

/dev/sda5            9469        9730    2096128  dd  Unknown

/dev/sda6            4053        4173      971901  82  Linux swap / Solaris

/dev/sda7            4174        4235      497983+  83  Linux

/dev/sda8            4236        4297      497983+  83  Linux

/dev/sda9            4298        5026    5855661  83  Linux

/dev/sda10          5027        5208    1461883+  83  Linux

/dev/sda11          5209        9468    34218418+  83  Linux



Partition table entries are not in disk order

As for partitions sda6-sda11, they are housing my Debian GNU/Linux -unstable installation, I know what *they* are for.

I'm guessing /dev/sda2 is the partition I see labeled as "Backup" in Windows, and /dev/sda3 is "C:".

I have no idea what /dev/sda1, /dev/sda2, /dev/sda4 are used for, if it's safe to delete them, etc. Can anyone share some info on this please?

sda1: Dell Utility. This has to do with system recovery features. Not sure exactly what is there, but don't delete it.

sda2: You should be able to view this from either Windows or Linux and see what is there.

sda4: Extended partition---acts as the "container" for the logical partitions (sda5 and beyond). If you delete this, you will wipe out all the logicals.

sda5: Looks like left over space in the extended partition. Ignore (or delete and use the space to make swap bigger)

This is the third time I accidentally click on one of the links on the right side of the page, thus losing the text in the "Quick reply" box.

I meant /dev/sda5 not /dev/sda4. I think I'll try to find out more about it before attempting to delete it. It's pretty big so I can't quite "ignore it" as it'd seem like I'm wasting resources.

As for /dev/sda4 how come it says "W95 Ext'd" ? And is this "bad" for the Debian system? (i.e. would a different type of extended partition be "better" for it?)

Thanks for your reply.

actually sda1 has nothing to do with recovery, it's a hardware testing suite. Quite useful, actually.
sda2 is the windows recovery partition.
sda5 seems to be a logical partition.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reverse

As for /dev/sda4 how come it says "W95 Ext'd" ? And is this "bad" for the Debian system? (i.e. would a different type of extended partition be "better" for it?)

No and no.
This whole design of partition table comes from a very long time ago (in PC computing terms). Best not to screw with it too much.

Interesting the only reference I can find to partition ID 0xdd is "Hidden CTOS Memory Dump"

Erm..?

I have a Dell (inspiron E1505) aswell. I was also wondering what that first partition was about. So I to am quite reluctant to delete it.

On my system the partition seems to be formatted as vfat. Here is the content of that partition;

Code:

Adaptec2.mdm  dell          IEEE1394.mdm  Nic.mdm      System.mdm

Adaptec.mdm  dellbio.bin  IMchEcc.mdm  Parallel.mdm  Usb2.mdm

ami_raid.mdm  Dellboot.exe  int15_88.com  Pci.mdm      UsbDevID.mdm

autoexec.bat  delldiag.com  IoApic.mdm    Perc2Ada.mdm  USBEHCI.mdm

autoexec.up  delldiag.exe  IR.mdm        pm.mdm        UsbKbd.mdm

BiosMp.mdm    DellDiag.INI  Keyboard.mdm  Pnp.mdm      UsbMass.mdm

CABLES.mdm    dellrmk.bin  LSI.mdm      Raid.mdm      Usb.mdm

Cache.mdm    DellSys.msm  Memory.mdm    Scsi.mdm      UsbMouse.mdm

command.com  delltbui.exe  MiscPci.mdm  seal.exe      USBOHCI.mdm

config.bts    dir.lst      Mouse.mdm    seal.ini      UsbTm.mdm

config.sys    Diskette.mdm  MpCache.mdm  Serial.mdm    UsbUfi.mdm

config.up    Disk.mdm      NbBatt.MDM    Smbios.mdm    USBUHCI.mdm

copyup.bat    Dvd.mdm      Nbfan.MDM    SMBus.mdm    Video.mdm

Cpu.mdm      GenAudio.mdm  NbSvc.MDM    Smi.mdm

DDInit.mim    HDAudio.mdm  Nbtherm.MDM  symtree.ini

ddinit.mlm    Iaudio.mdm    nic8254x.MDM  SYSBDMON.mdm

And the content of the "dell" sub directory

Code:

b10_usa.bmp  ebts_eng.bmp  font.bmp    restart.exe

deltree.exe  english      p10_usa.bmp  zwikboot.bat

Apparently Dell has some sort of "recovery" mechanism which you can use to "reset" your computer to it's initial state (i.e. the one it was in when you first bought the laptop).

I'm dazzled about the sda5 partition though :-/ Esp. since it's ID seems to be "dd". I've toyed around with Ubuntu a bit before setting for Debian -unstable and more or less left the Ubuntu installer do most of the resizing/partitioning work. I can't help but wander if /dev/sda5 arose from it, somehow. (I didn't get along too well with the Ubuntu partitioner)

What's worse is that I don't know where to look for some official documentation on this kind of stuff. I have some manuals but none of them are "technical" enough to provide details regarding the default partitions.

cfdisk knows nothing of ID 0xdd, however it does list 0xde as "Dell Utility". Perhaps Dell use 0xdd as well, or used to (how old is it anyway?).

0xdd is probably the S3 sleep partition
sda1 is a testing suite
sda2 is windows recovery