I am thinking about getting a Dell laptop (any comments about that welcome), and one of the options they give is to pre-partition your hardrive for 10.00. Should I get that, why, and if so, which way should I have them do it?

Thanks

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1998 C230 330,000 miles (currently dead of second failed EIS, yours will fail too, turning you into the dealer's personal human cash machine)
1988 F150 144,000 miles (leaks all the colors of the rainbow)
Previous stars: 1981 Brava 210,000 miles, 1978 128 150,000 miles, 1977 B200 Van 175,000 miles, 1972 Vega (great, if rusty, car), 1972 Celica, 1986.5 Supra

Ummm, a benefit of the partition is that you have the ability to put documents and what not onto a different partition than your windows drive... So that if you reformat, your stuff is somewhere else.

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-Justin

91 560 SEC AMG - other dogs dd
01 Honda S2000 - dogs dd
07 MB ML320 CDI - dd
16 Lexus IS250 - wifes dd

it's automatic.

What for? Do you want to run Linux on a different partition?

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You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows - Robert A. Zimmerman

Wow they are getting desperate for income to charge for that.

Next automakers will charge $5.00 for making sure that the emergency brake on the car is ON when they deliver it.

You can do this on your own but it requires the hour or so of installation time if you do it yourself at the formatting stage.

It can also be done on the fly once the system is in place with software. I have not done it but it can be done and many have done so.

Even so the partitioning, is purely for organizational purposes as that varies on your preferences. Some prefer to separate the files for easy backup and recovery.

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1974 240D 3.0L 4(M) - 250K -OM617.910 + 300D FW + Rajay turbo power!
1977 6.9 3(A) - 84k

If you have vista, you can do it within windows! For free!

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-Justin

91 560 SEC AMG - other dogs dd
01 Honda S2000 - dogs dd
07 MB ML320 CDI - dd
16 Lexus IS250 - wifes dd

it's automatic.

A separate partition on the same drive gives very little advantage, and is certainly not worth paying for. It's not even worth it for dual-booting. I run many operating systems, but don't dual-boot a single machine.

Get an external USB-2.0 disk and use that for additional storage.

I hate Vista.
Matt L, I agree that it's not worth paying for, but why don't you like a separate partition on the same drive? Makes for faster defrags, you can reformat only the OS portion, and I'm sure other items.
Personally, I like a small fast drive for the OS, and a large one for all of the extra stuff like pics and games and stuff.

I don't have lots of pics on my computer, and I don't play computer games. My work involves using other servers with various OS's (Windows included), so I prefer a workstation with a single decent drive that gets the job done.