Confused about hard drive on new Dell....

A

alpha_beta

New Member
I'm somewhat confused regarding an issue that is probably easy to answer, but i would appreciate any help that anyone has to offer.

I have just purchased a Dell XPS M140 laptop that was supposed to have an 80GB Ultra ATA Hard Drive. I was checking the "Rearrange Items on Your Hard Disk to Make Programs Run Faster" (this is how I check the actual capacity) and it shows that I have 68.42GB capacity. This seems low to me, but as a novice I am unsure. I have two other computers a desktop that was supposed to have an 80GB HD and it shows a capacity of around 77GB and another laptop w/ 40GB and the capacity shows approximately 36GB.

Is this something I should be upset about and warrant me contacting Dell support?

Thank you.
 
There would be a recovery partition hidden on the drive for proprietary bios information as well as drivers/softwares for the unit. This allows the recovery disk support if a repair of a preinstallation of Windows is needed. Most all prebuild systems especially portable units will have this.
 
PC Eye is right. The Dell Laptops come with a hidden partition that cant be seen by "My Computer", these partitions are usually around 5-7GB. If you want to get rid of it, using a program such as Norton Partition Magic will work.
 
The problem with wiping that means losing functionality without the softwares/drivers stored there that are strictly Dell. If you lose that then you would most likely have to bring your laptop in for servicing in order to have all of that replaced. It is far easier if you need drive space to have Dell install a larger drive. Most likely that would be a move to a 100gb model.
 
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