No Logigical Drives

Many laptops are set up with hidden drives that the manufacture can use to restore the laptop to the original configuration.

I don't remember if there is a specific listing, but you might check out some of the links at www.fdisk.com/fdisk

Chas

The Chas is correct. A work around that I use is to use a disk editing utility and over write the boot partition of the drive. FDISK will now see this as an unpartitioned drive and you will have the full capacity of the drive to use as you wish. I use Norton Disk Editer or Microscope to accomplish this. Be advised that some restore disks have to have this partition, especially some Compaqs, and will not run the restore without it.

I hope this helps.

If you don't mind losing a possible hidden partition, you could also try using:

FDISK /MBR

which will re-write the master boot record. See:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;69013

luck,

Stu

Normally you delete the extended partition logical drive then the primary, same goes for the partitions.

You could re-define the extended as the primary then verify no extended partitions exist, no logical drives defined, then delete.

Did you save settings ? FDisk may think there are still logical drives.

A few options:

1. Go through Windows NT, 2K, or XP (if you have a CD) installation process and delete all partitions. Once you deleted them, quit installation.

2. Use ?Clean1K? utility program that wipes out any partitions on the fly. The program is from Dell and may not be available to non-Dell customer. Once in a while, somebody makes it available in Internet. Try www.google.com with a keyword ?Clean1K? without the quote. If you cannot find it, post a comment and I will e-mail you one.

3. Use a commercially available utility, e.g. GDISK from Norton Ghost, to delete all partitions.