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Windows Forum / Windows XP / General Topics 1 / July 2008Partitions on Dell Computer
Trying to help a friend with her Dell Dimension 3000 machine. It would not boot. I installed that hard drive into another machine as a Slave and it was recognized. XP's Disk Management showed the drive to be partitioned (or at least split) into 3 sections. The first simply shows 39 Meg Healthy, the second shows (C:) 70 GB (System) Healthy. I don't recall exactly what the third section showed but it did (and does) show 4.17 GB. I did delete that third section. Now with that HD back in the original machine, it will boot after being prompted to press F1 - Primary Drive 1 not found. I tried several things with that 3rd section, but nothing eliminates that prompt for F1. I suspect that 3rd section was something unique with the Dell system. Any thoughts? Earl > Trying to help a friend with her Dell Dimension 3000 machine. It would > not boot. I installed that hard drive into another machine as a Slave and [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > > Any thoughts? Yes, you should have told your friend to take the machine to a professional computer repair shop where they would not have messed with the partitions like that. Dells usually have at least two partitions - a small one that holds diagnostic utilities and the larger one that holds the operating system, programs, and data. Some Dells also have a smallish partition which holds a recovery image. There is no way for people who can't look at the drive to know what is on it or what was on it before you destroyed the last partition. Your description of the problem - can't boot - indicates possible hardware failure but there is simply no way to know, particularly because you messed with the partitions. Another thing to consider: did you change the drive's jumper settings when you put it into the other computer? Dells use Cable Select. At this point I would do thorough hardware diagnostics on the machine and the drive. If everything passes, do a clean install of Windows using Dell's installation media. Malke  SignatureMS-MVP Elephant Boy Computers - Don't Panic! FAQ - http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/#FAQ Earl The computer needs to be fixed by someone who does not think that fixing the problem will be achieved by deleting the restore partition. ~~~~ Gerry ~~~~ FCA Stourport, England Enquire, plan and execute ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Trying to help a friend with her Dell Dimension 3000 machine. It would not boot. I installed that hard drive into another machine as a Slave and it was recognized. XP's Disk Management showed the drive to be partitioned (or at least split) into 3 sections. The first simply shows 39 Meg Healthy, the second shows (C:) 70 GB (System) Healthy. I don't recall exactly what the third section showed but it did (and does) show 4.17 GB. I did delete that third section. Now with that HD back in the original machine, it will boot after being prompted to press F1 - Primary Drive 1 not found. I tried several things with that 3rd section, but nothing eliminates that prompt for F1. I suspect that 3rd section was something unique with the Dell system. Any thoughts? Earl Trying to help a friend with her Dell Dimension 3000 machine. It would not boot. I installed that hard drive into another machine as a Slave and it was recognized. XP's Disk Management showed the drive to be partitioned (or at least split) into 3 sections. The first simply shows 39 Meg Healthy, the second shows (C:) 70 GB (System) Healthy. I don't recall exactly what the third section showed but it did (and does) show 4.17 GB. I did delete that third section. Now with that HD back in the original machine, it will boot after being prompted to press F1 - Primary Drive 1 not found. I tried several things with that 3rd section, but nothing eliminates that prompt for F1. I suspect that 3rd section was something unique with the Dell system. Any thoughts? Earl Earl Tell your friend to contact Dell for assistance. Advise your friend to plead with Dell, as a friend seems to have only made the process of system recovery 100% harder than it otherwise would have been. Next, promise your friend that you will never help them again.. Do this if you value the friendship.. SignatureMike Hall - MVP How to construct a good post.. http://dts-l.com/goodpost.htm How to use the Microsoft Product Support Newsgroups.. http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=newswhelp&style=toc Mike's Window - My Blog.. http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/default.aspx > Trying to help a friend with her Dell Dimension 3000 machine. It > would not boot. [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > > Any thoughts? Unfortunately, you deleted the partition containing that which is necessary to restore the computer to its pristine state. There are software tools that can recover (sometimes) a deleted partition. Put the drive back in your machine and copy off all your friend's data. Make two copies. The original problem could have been anything, quite possibly a corrupted Master Boot Record. This is easy to fix - for someone who knows what they're doing. That likely was the Dell System Restore (DSR) partition. Why on earth you would have deleted it is beyond me. That will create two problems: one for just booting up into windows (since checking for the DSR is involved as part of the normal Dell bootup routine), but that can be resolved if you know what you are doing, and IF that was the ONLY problem. And the second is that you have now lost the capability of ever falling back to the factory shipped condition. Trying to help a friend with her Dell Dimension 3000 machine. It would not boot. I installed that hard drive into another machine as a Slave and it was recognized. XP's Disk Management showed the drive to be partitioned (or at least split) into 3 sections. The first simply shows 39 Meg Healthy, the second shows (C:) 70 GB (System) Healthy. I don't recall exactly what the third section showed but it did (and does) show 4.17 GB. I did delete that third section. Now with that HD back in the original machine, it will boot after being prompted to press F1 - Primary Drive 1 not found. I tried several things with that 3rd section, but nothing eliminates that prompt for F1. I suspect that 3rd section was something unique with the Dell system. Any thoughts? Earl Hey Bill: Why don't you indent and mark the messages you respond to with the > character? It would make it easier for us to separate the posts. > That likely was the Dell System Restore (DSR) partition. Why on earth > you would have deleted it is beyond me. [quoted text clipped - 31 lines] > > Earl Normally that automatically happens. Don't know why it didn't. > Hey Bill: Why don't you indent and mark the messages you respond to with > the > character? It would make it easier for us to separate the posts. >> That likely was the Dell System Restore (DSR) partition. Why on earth >> you would have deleted it is beyond me. [quoted text clipped - 31 lines] >> >> Earl It worked this time. > Normally that automatically happens. Don't know why it didn't. > [quoted text clipped - 40 lines] >>> >>> Earl > It worked this time. Yes, it's annoyingly inconsistent. >> Normally that automatically happens. Don't know why it didn't. >> [quoted text clipped - 41 lines] >>>> >>>> Earl Bill, in your Plain Text settings, is your Message Format MIME by any chance? That's my guess. If you change it to Uuencode, the attribution quotes will probably appear when you reply to a post like Earl's (since you are using OE QuoteFix). > Normally that automatically happens. Don't know why it didn't. > [quoted text clipped - 36 lines] >>> >>> Earl > Bill, in your Plain Text settings, is your Message Format MIME by any > chance? It's Uuencode. > That's my guess. If you change it to Uuencode, the attribution > quotes will probably appear when you reply to a post like Earl's (since [quoted text clipped - 40 lines] >>>> >>>> Earl >> Bill, in your Plain Text settings, is your Message Format MIME by any >> chance? > > It's Uuencode. So much for that theory... One last thought: Tools | Options | Read | Read all messages in plain text... is that checked? >>> Bill, in your Plain Text settings, is your Message Format MIME by any >>> chance? [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > Tools | Options | Read | Read all messages in plain text... is that > checked? Nope. But I don't think I want it to be, either. :-) (I mean, why limit yourself - that would be pretty limiting) >>>> Bill, in your Plain Text settings, is your Message Format MIME by >>>> any chance? [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > Nope. But I don't think I want it to be, either. :-) > (I mean, why limit yourself - that would be pretty limiting) I officially give up. In order for OE QuoteFix to work on systems post-SP1, that box needs to be unchecked (and yours is unchecked as it should be). And since yours is unchecked, OE QuoteFix should be able to correct OE's deficiency in responding to the type of post Earl made. Oh, well! Daave FYI I also use QuoteFix with OE6 and I got a vertical bar by way of indentaion rather the more normal >>>> No idea why though! SignatureHope this helps. Gerry ~~~~ FCA Stourport, England Enquire, plan and execute ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >>>>> Bill, in your Plain Text settings, is your Message Format MIME by >>>>> any chance? [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > made. > Oh, well! >>>>> Bill, in your Plain Text settings, is your Message Format MIME by >>>>> any chance? [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > > Oh, well! But it's only happened on a few occasions, right? At least that's my understanding, as up to now I've had no complaints. > Hey Bill: Why don't you indent and mark the messages you respond to with > the > character? It would make it > easier for us to separate the posts. The reason is that the quote marks are an automatic setting. But if you're using Windows Mail or OE to respond to posts, it's pretty common for WM or OE to be unable to determine the MIME type of the original post, and give up and not quote at all. It's really rather an annoying defect. The workaround for this is to answer that post in Thunderbird or another newsreader that doesn't have this problem. HTH -pk >> That likely was the Dell System Restore (DSR) partition. Why on earth >> you would have deleted it is beyond me. [quoted text clipped - 31 lines] >> >> Earl Yup, automatic setting. I'm using Outlook Express, with Quote-Fix. Haven't generally noticed any real problems up to this point, however. >> Hey Bill: Why don't you indent and mark the messages you respond to with >> the > character? It would make it easier for us to separate the posts. [quoted text clipped - 51 lines] >>> >>> Earl Bill Have you installed all Outlook Express updates? Your header is showing 6.00.2900.3138. The latest is 6.00.2900.5512. SignatureRegards. Gerry ~~~~ FCA Stourport, England Enquire, plan and execute ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > Yup, automatic setting. I'm using Outlook Express, with Quote-Fix. > Haven't generally noticed any real problems up to this point, however. [quoted text clipped - 54 lines] >>>> >>>> Earl No way. I generally don't do those "updates". (I've been around the block waaaay too many times on that - so I say, "thanks, but no thanks"). And I could tell ya what to do with SP3, too, but my own "modesty" prevents me from doing so here. :-) > Bill > [quoted text clipped - 69 lines] >>>>> >>>>> Earl >> Hey Bill: Why don't you indent and mark the messages you respond to >> with the > character? It would make it [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > original post, and give up and not quote at all. It's really > rather an annoying defect. Whaaat? I've used OE since day one and never seen such a problem, MIME or otherwise. MIME "type" has nothing to do with it, I'm pretty much certain. Settings, malware or file corruption are much more likely reasons. > The workaround for this is to answer that post in Thunderbird or > another newsreader that doesn't have this problem. Yeah, if you want to fart around with addins and other similar things. Nothing really wrong with TB other than that, though. It's a decent mailreader albeit IMO missing a bunch of stuff as received. > HTH > -pk [quoted text clipped - 33 lines] >>> >>> Earl >>> Hey Bill: Why don't you indent and mark the messages you respond to >>> with the > character? It would make it [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > certain. Settings, malware or file corruption are much more likely > reasons. It's a relatively longstanding and common problem, shared by both OE and Windows Mail. It's not a setting, malware or corruption and it is related to MIME types, specifically MIME Quoted/Printable. Windows Live Mail does handle it properly, but I don't like its interface. . http://www.insideoe.com/faqs/why.htm#replychars === Why does OE forget to add reply characters to some of my replies? If the message to which you are replying was sent to you as MIME/Quoted Printable, the text of the message is formatted as paragraphs, not as lines, and therefore no reply characters will be added. This is a design issue, not a bug. It is simply the way Microsoft mail programs have always dealt with MIME/Quoted Printable. === >> The workaround for this is to answer that post in Thunderbird or >> another newsreader that doesn't have this problem. [quoted text clipped - 40 lines] >>>> >>>> Earl > Trying to help a friend with her Dell Dimension 3000 machine. It > would not boot. [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > > Earl As others said, you've probably damaged the ability to ever do a recovery to delivery status. Your best course now would be to check with Dell to see if they can help at all. She might be able to get an XP install disk for a decent price, then again maybe not; depends on a lot of things including the wind direction. Also, not to add insult to injury, but ... do NOT post to newsgroups in HTML or Rich Text, whatever youwant to call it. Use Plain Text only. Some groups will allow html but most do not. Trying to help a friend with her Dell Dimension 3000 machine. It would not boot. I installed that hard drive into another machine as a Slave and it was recognized. XP's Disk Management showed the drive to be partitioned (or at least split) into 3 sections. The first simply shows 39 Meg Healthy, the second shows (C:) 70 GB (System) Healthy. I don't recall exactly what the third section showed but it did (and does) show 4.17 GB. I did delete that third section. Now with that HD back in the original machine, it will boot after being prompted to press F1 - Primary Drive 1 not found. I tried several things with that 3rd section, but nothing eliminates that prompt for F1. I suspect that 3rd section was something unique with the Dell system. Any thoughts? Earl ================== Yes. The small partition was the restore partition, which is critical as that PC probably didn't come with restore CDs, but with that partition instead. It's for reinstalling Windows. Changing the partitions will do *nothing* for this boot-time F1 error message, which is produced by the BIOS. The Bios doesn't know or care about the partitions. You most likely have the jumpers set for the drive to be Slave, when it should be Cable Select. HTH -pk > Trying to help a friend with her Dell Dimension 3000 machine. It would > not [quoted text clipped - 32 lines] > about > the partitions. Maybe not for that one (the F1 error), but, IIRC, the Dell BIOS does initially look for the presence of the Dell System Restore Partition when it boots up (looking specifically for the Ctrl-F11 key sequence), and then it passes control over to Windows (typically on the second or third partition). Dell normally has created 2 primary hidden partitions (one for some hardware checkingr routines, and one for the DSR). And if you delete that DSR partition, the system won't boot up into windows, unless you change the boot.ini file to reflect that change in the partition number that has windows, at least as I recall. > You most likely have the jumpers set for the drive to be Slave, when it > should be Cable Select. > > HTH > -pk Trying to help a friend with her Dell Dimension 3000 machine. It would not boot. I installed that hard drive into another machine as a Slave and it was recognized. XP's Disk Management showed the drive to be partitioned (or at least split) into 3 sections. The first simply shows 39 Meg Healthy, the second shows (C:) 70 GB (System) Healthy. I don't recall exactly what the third section showed but it did (and does) show 4.17 GB. I did delete that third section. Now with that HD back in the original machine, it will boot after being prompted to press F1 - Primary Drive 1 not found. I tried several things with that 3rd section, but nothing eliminates that prompt for F1. I suspect that 3rd section was something unique with the Dell system. Any thoughts? Shut the computer down and unplug it,now remove the cmos battery,after about a minute put the battery back in and restart the computer. Does it still prompt for f1? SignatureMike Pawlak Enter dell BIOS setup by pressing f2 when you see the dell flashing screen at startup.In setup - under maintainence - clear event logs then set CMOS defaults.Also turn on the fast boot under Post behaviour.This should help.If didnt locate the phone support number for your location from the mannual shipped with computer. Trying to help a friend with her Dell Dimension 3000 machine. It would not boot. I installed that hard drive into another machine as a Slave and it was recognized. XP's Disk Management showed the drive to be partitioned (or at least split) into 3 sections. The first simply shows 39 Meg Healthy, the second shows (C:) 70 GB (System) Healthy. I don't recall exactly what the third section showed but it did (and does) show 4.17 GB. I did delete that third section. Now with that HD back in the original machine, it will boot after being prompted to press F1 - Primary Drive 1 not found. I tried several things with that 3rd section, but nothing eliminates that prompt for F1. I suspect that 3rd section was something unique with the Dell system. Any thoughts? Earl Thanks for all the replies to my original request. The owner of the machine was about ready to toss it and buy another computer. If it contained anything really critical, I definitely would not have done my "experimentations". But, now she has her machine working again at practically no cost. Probably good for another 5 to 6 years. Further experimenting... the jumper has been in Cable Select and Master with no positive results. I finally plugged in a second HD to do a backup and that prompt for F1 no longer appears... boots normally. I realize the Dell Restore capability is gone. I had an OLD 520 Meg HD that I left in the machine. I'll probably try the last two suggestions of removing the battery and clearing the event logs. Earl > Enter dell BIOS setup by pressing f2 when you see the dell flashing screen > at startup.In setup - under maintainence - clear event logs then set CMOS [quoted text clipped - 26 lines] > > Earl Your last post confirms what I was thinking,your second hard drive port is enabled in the BIOS, and installing the second HD bypassed the prompt for f1. This happened to me just last week when I cloned my HD, removing my old HD after the clone gave me the f1 prompt. If you take this other HD out in the future windmap is on the same page as I am set your bios to default (removing the battery will do this). Good Luck Mike Pawlak > Thanks for all the replies to my original request. The owner of the machine > was [quoted text clipped - 48 lines] > > > > Earl OK, I disconnected that 2nd HD, removed the battery. In Setup, I showed the Primary Slave OFF (not there). Still prompts with F1. I'm happy with that small HD being left there to eliminate the F1 prompt, but willing to try other ideas. Earl > Your last post confirms what I was thinking,your second hard drive > port [quoted text clipped - 72 lines] >> > >> > Earl Try Clearing NV RAM Turn on all the three "Num" "Caps" "Scroll" locks in keyboard when you are in BIOS Setup main screen. Then press ALT + E ALT + F ALT + B Computer will restart itself performing Automatic IDE configuration. > OK, I disconnected that 2nd HD, removed the battery. In Setup, I showed > the [quoted text clipped - 85 lines] >>> > >>> > Earl |
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