On 23 Aug, 13:24, "Robin" wrote:
The smaller partition is (from memory so almost certainly) Dell's
diagnostics. *You can run these at bootup using F12. *See eg Dell's
guidance for the Dimension 5000http://support.dell.com/support/systemsinfo/document.aspx?c=us&l=en&s...

I agree the other partition will be for you to Restore the system to the
way it shipped. *Not a good idea unless you want to spend many a happy
hour reinstalling software, service packs etc *But worth keeping unless
you are desperate for disk space.
--
Robin
PM may be sent to rbw0{at}hotmail{dot}com

Many thanks, Robin. I take it then that this suggestion from 'a
friend' is incorrect
"All NTFS formatted drives still require to have a FAT 16/32 partition
(or 2) to facilitate boot-up. Bios's can't read NTFS because it is
requires the OS (Windows or otherwise) to be loaded first. " ??

Rob