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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?)
Distribution: Ubuntu 10.10 / Windows 7 Pro 64-Bit / Snow Leopard 10.6.4 64-Bit
Posts: 152
Rep:
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.
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.
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.
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