My first question would be, how trustworthy is the Dell Diagnostic ?
I tried a search, and wasn't able to form a strong opinion, based
on what people were doing with the results.
Generally, you'd want to test with a second diagnostic, and see if it
reports problems in the same block.
Both Western Digital and Seagate, offer diagnostics for download from
their web site. Seagate makes a self-booting version (Seatools for DOS)
and a version that runs from Windows, as examples of diagnostics. They
can have things like a "short" and a "long" test. Such tests would
likely include read verification.
A lot of other disk companies, have been bought up by the big two,
making it more of a challenge to find the diagnostics for other
brands of disks.
I can get the same sort of info as well, from some testing with
HDTune, but that probably won't be giving you a log to look at
later.
*******
You'll need a Partition Manager program, to do manipulations on
the disk partitions. For example, you could "move" the logicals to
the left, squeeze down the extended partition holding them, and put
new partitions to the right. Or, attempt to convert the logicals
into primary partitions. Or, try the (much more dangerous) merge
type operation, to squash them together and make room for more
partitions.
Depending on the importance of your data though, I still like the idea
of backing up a disk, as a function of what you plan to do to it. If
I was "merging" several partitions, I'd definitely make an image of
the entire disk, onto a brand new disk.
Think of it this way. You've had a disk failure, and are now "minus one
disk".
Logically, you should be buying a new (dependable) disk to add to your
collection, to take its place. That gives you one spare disk to play with,
while planning all your partition movements or changes. You can select
a size of disk, big enough to do maintenance on the biggest disk you've
got. The pricing on disks is sufficiently illogical, you can pay just
about anything now, whether the disk is 20GB or 2TB.
There are partition manager programs which are available for free.
There are Linux discs like Gparted LiveCD (which I find scary, because
of the bogus messages you might see while it's running). If selecting
a free partition manager, run the name of the utility through Google,
and see if it's damaged stuff. if there are reports of it ruining disks,
then you'll have advanced warning (and be using that new disk for a
backup).
Even Windows has some primitive capabilities. DiskPart, if you run it
from a Windows 7 Recovery Console, can do things like "shrink" a
partition.
You can download a Windows 7 installer DVD, and use the Recovery Console
on
it, without a license key.
But what most people are looking for, is a reliable "non-circus" tool
that won't make them crazy. In which case, a commercial partition manager,
with a good reputation, is what you should be looking for. I revel in
the free crap, but also use backups to cover me, in case something goes
wrong. And with that "new disk to replace old disk, balance of the
universe"
approach I suggest, you should be getting an additional brand new disk, so
you don't have to be nearly as fearful while making these changes.
I don't mind moving a primary partition with a utility. That always
works. But some of the more complicated operations, like "merge", is
just asking for trouble.
I wouldn't have made those two logicals in the first place. That
would put me in a hard spot, when it comes to managing space, and facing
the situation you're in right now. From bitter experience, I know if
I make logicals now, they'll only be a roadblock later, to easy solutions.
Sometimes you have no choice. In the old days, I had particular reasons
for having a computer with 20 partitions. But I just don't do stuff like
that any more. A lot of the old capacity barriers that caused solutions
like that, are gone.
*******
One other thing. I'm sure Acronis will be able to find how many partitions
are really on that disk. A Dell might have three or four. You can use
PTEDIT32, to check the partition types, if you want another opinion.
ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/tools/pq/utilities/PTEDIT32.zip
Example output from that program, showing a Dell disk.
http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/files/dell-tbl.gif
*******
In your situation, I'd probably be dropping by my local supplier,
and picking up another disk. On average, I buy about two disks a
year, just so I have a safe place to do stuff. That's better than
plotting and scheming, with untested partition manager utilities,
when you have no safety net to work with.
Paul
