I had the same problem with a 4500. The 8meg file wouldnt go away. In the setup menu I think I reformatted and everything went smooth after that. The 8meg file may be a dell thing. In my opinion i dont think its needed.I installed and reactivated with no problems.
trying to do a "clean instal"help!
- Thread starter Philip Gerding
- Start date
- Status
killians45
Fully Optimized
- Messages
- 3,243
um, it wont ask about the format/partition until AFTER he hits enter. Essentially, it will have the largest allocated space highlighted. Just hit enter at that point. It should ask it you want to remove the current partition, choose YES to do that and remove any other partition. After that you will want to recreate it, just use large disk size and use the HDD full space. Also, suggest using NTFS. After this, it probably wont ask you to format since its been fdisked and HAS to format itself. Also, at the very bottom of the screen you should see options like press F8 if you accept, etc. Write this stuff down so we can better assist you.
killians45
Fully Optimized
- Messages
- 3,243
Oh yeah, almost forgot. About the 8MB partition, thats normal on some systems. Its used to be able to create Dynamic disks. Normally there is some space remaining at the end of the hard disk. It may not show on all systems, but may show during initial setup to ensure the HDD complete size. You wont see it when in windows, though. Its not usuer accessible in windows.
TheMajor
PowerQuest / Opera
- Messages
- 10,176
- Location
- Netherlands
I think its also there when a disk's first partition is logical.
killians45
Fully Optimized
- Messages
- 3,243
I think your right on that, too. Old drives also had this, and it contained important info about the HDD. Cluster size and what not. Thats why a low level format was bad on old drives, unless you knew what you were doing. Then along came the IC on the HDD containing that info, and was no longer needed in the partition. Only way to make Dynamic info and parition info to be contained on a HDD IC is if it were flashable and had its own battery to contain the info, like the bios (really, a little more involved than that, but thats the general idea).
- Status
