Vostro 1700 Hidden partitions

[prescott28]

I got my Vostro this week from Dell outlet and it is very good. It cam with 4BG memory and a very good screen and a 320GB drive. However, with the recovery partition and a logical drive D: containing 10GB of recovery files I fell I have lost quite a bit of space.

So, anyone know if these bits on my hard drive are needed as I have various recovery DVDs including Vista and the drivers. Also, if the DVDs I have are enough to reinstall everything, how do I remove the hidden partitions and reformat?

Finally, a phone call to Dell about the possibility of 64 bit Vista told me that Microsoft is working on a patch to 32 bit Windows to allow 4GB access (apart from the various ROMs) - at present I can only see 3.5GB. Anyone know anything about this?

Thanks for any help.

 

[prescott28]

Thanks for that, Minging. I'm off to see relatives and things next week so I'll get the job done when we get back. I didn't know whether there was anything useful in the hidden partitions which one cannot easily access.

Seems like a great machine though.