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Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)
Yes, you can create a Dell diagnostic partition on a bare hard drive. Or at
least I can. Or I did, and I can do it again, sometimes.
First, I tried with a pair of Dell Latitude notebooks, a C810 and a C840. The
user's guides give a clue that it is not possible, because they tell you to run
the diagnostics from either floppy or CD-ROM. No mention at all of diagnostic
partitions. The basic problem here is that the notebooks' BIOS does not give
enough menu choices for the F12 key boot menu. The choice to boot the
diagnostics is missing on these models.
However, I did succeed with a Dell Precision 360 for which one of my clients
wanted a larger hard disk than originally installed. Here's what I did using a
Windows 98 boot disk, RANISH partition editor, a CD burner on another system, a
download of the appropriate diagnostics from the Dell web site, and my own bare
hands.
1. Create a primary DOS partition on the drive using FDISK. I picked a
partition size of 40MB, but if you want to put more stuff in this partition,
make it larger.
2. Reboot, and format the partition to boot up Windows 98 with the command
FORMAT C: /S
3. Burn a CD with the unzipped diagnostics for your model of Dell computer.
Add a reboot command plus any other software you want on the partition.
4. Copy the contents of the CD to the C: drive of your target system. You can
organize the diagnostic partition with folders (directories) if you'd like.
5. Using the Win 98 EDIT command, create an AUTOEXEC.BAT text file something
like:
echo off
delldiags
reboot
and save the file as C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT . The three commands shown here assume
that both the Dell diagnostics and the reboot command are in the root directory
of the C: drive.
6. Reboot the system and make sure this all works, because it is a pain in the
ass to go back and fix it up. But it can be done. If you don't like what you
see, fix it now and test again before changing the partition type.
7. Run the RANISH partition editor (or PTEDIT), change the partition type to
0xDE (that's hexadecimal DE), make the partition NOT bootable, and save the new
partition sector.
8. Install your favorite operating system.
9. Now when you press the F12 key to see the boot options, one of them should be
menu choice #8 to access the diagnostic partition.
A couple of comments:
The tools to do this are pretty simple, but it really does help to know DOS
commands. More important than the tools, get things done in the right order.
The Ranish partition editor is an old-style DOS menu-based editor, but it does
work well. PTEDIT has a Windows look-and-feel, but it is downright crippled if
you don't load up a DOS-based mouse driver before using it... Ben Myers
Yes, you can create a Dell diagnostic partition on a bare hard drive. Or at
least I can. Or I did, and I can do it again, sometimes.
First, I tried with a pair of Dell Latitude notebooks, a C810 and a C840. The
user's guides give a clue that it is not possible, because they tell you to run
the diagnostics from either floppy or CD-ROM. No mention at all of diagnostic
partitions. The basic problem here is that the notebooks' BIOS does not give
enough menu choices for the F12 key boot menu. The choice to boot the
diagnostics is missing on these models.
However, I did succeed with a Dell Precision 360 for which one of my clients
wanted a larger hard disk than originally installed. Here's what I did using a
Windows 98 boot disk, RANISH partition editor, a CD burner on another system, a
download of the appropriate diagnostics from the Dell web site, and my own bare
hands.
1. Create a primary DOS partition on the drive using FDISK. I picked a
partition size of 40MB, but if you want to put more stuff in this partition,
make it larger.
2. Reboot, and format the partition to boot up Windows 98 with the command
FORMAT C: /S
3. Burn a CD with the unzipped diagnostics for your model of Dell computer.
Add a reboot command plus any other software you want on the partition.
4. Copy the contents of the CD to the C: drive of your target system. You can
organize the diagnostic partition with folders (directories) if you'd like.
5. Using the Win 98 EDIT command, create an AUTOEXEC.BAT text file something
like:
echo off
delldiags
reboot
and save the file as C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT . The three commands shown here assume
that both the Dell diagnostics and the reboot command are in the root directory
of the C: drive.
6. Reboot the system and make sure this all works, because it is a pain in the
ass to go back and fix it up. But it can be done. If you don't like what you
see, fix it now and test again before changing the partition type.
7. Run the RANISH partition editor (or PTEDIT), change the partition type to
0xDE (that's hexadecimal DE), make the partition NOT bootable, and save the new
partition sector.
8. Install your favorite operating system.
9. Now when you press the F12 key to see the boot options, one of them should be
menu choice #8 to access the diagnostic partition.
A couple of comments:
The tools to do this are pretty simple, but it really does help to know DOS
commands. More important than the tools, get things done in the right order.
The Ranish partition editor is an old-style DOS menu-based editor, but it does
work well. PTEDIT has a Windows look-and-feel, but it is downright crippled if
you don't load up a DOS-based mouse driver before using it... Ben Myers