Problem with Dell Laptop
Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 8:04 pm
Hi, my Dell Studio laptop is about 2 years old. I used bootitng to resize and create a data partition without installing bootitng. Recently, I shrank the extended data partition and installed Ubuntu 12.04 with the default grub loader in mbr and all went well.
I wanted to get rid of the two Dell partitions, so I copied bootmgr and boot from the utility partition to windows 7 (not an easy task since contrary to the instructions, boot didn't like to be copied while windows was running). I set windows 7 as active and all was well.
So I went ahead and deleted the Dell Utility and Recovery partitions. The machine would not boot. I undeleted those partitions - no luck.
I had images of both, so I tried to restore the images, but paste was greyed out. I deleted the partitions again and now I could paste the dell utility, but couldn't paste the Recovery partition. It now showed very slightly smaller than original, not sure if that was the problem. I couldn't resize the Dell utility to give a little more room. I was truly stuck.
Luckily, I had made a windows recovery image from windows 7 to try it out (I normally use IFW), and that got me back, apparently that copies both the Dell Utility and the Recovery partition. I use mbrwork to save embr's so I can go back to previous installs.
The fact that I couldn't recover everything bothers me, I've never had a problem with other partitions in the past. I would like to know if anyone know why, but how do I get rid of those Dell partitions. I suppose if they are really needed I could shrink them, is it a security thing. Thanks for any ideas
I wanted to get rid of the two Dell partitions, so I copied bootmgr and boot from the utility partition to windows 7 (not an easy task since contrary to the instructions, boot didn't like to be copied while windows was running). I set windows 7 as active and all was well.
So I went ahead and deleted the Dell Utility and Recovery partitions. The machine would not boot. I undeleted those partitions - no luck.
I had images of both, so I tried to restore the images, but paste was greyed out. I deleted the partitions again and now I could paste the dell utility, but couldn't paste the Recovery partition. It now showed very slightly smaller than original, not sure if that was the problem. I couldn't resize the Dell utility to give a little more room. I was truly stuck.
Luckily, I had made a windows recovery image from windows 7 to try it out (I normally use IFW), and that got me back, apparently that copies both the Dell Utility and the Recovery partition. I use mbrwork to save embr's so I can go back to previous installs.
The fact that I couldn't recover everything bothers me, I've never had a problem with other partitions in the past. I would like to know if anyone know why, but how do I get rid of those Dell partitions. I suppose if they are really needed I could shrink them, is it a security thing. Thanks for any ideas