Should I delete Dell OEM partition ?

[khunter1]

Hi guys,I purchased a Dell Vostro 2520 ( System Restoration DVD was not provided ) with preinstalled Ubuntu and installed Windows 7 Ultimate on it. When I was deleting partitions I noticed a 300 MB Dell OEM partition. I didn't delete this coz I had no idea about this.

After some research i got to know that OEM partition contains the Dell diagnostics.Is Dell Factory Image Restore utility a part of Dell diagnostic software ?AFAIK Dell Factory Image Restore utility formats the C:\OS partition and mounts the file Dell\Image\Factory.wim which is an image of the system exactly as it shipped from the factory.Right ?

So in my case system image of ubuntu is supposed to be there in the OEM partition ?Therefore it's of no use for me coz I have installed Windows 7.Moreover under Disk Management it's showing that OEM Partiton is 100 % free.And what's the point of using that if we can use Windows backup and other third party softwares like EaseUs and Acronics ?
So should I delete OEM Partition ? Do I really need to keep it?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Regards

 

[drtweak]

Yea a 300MB is kind of small for a Recovery Partition. Those are usually like 10-20 GB not 300 MB. Is there a 100MB parition on there or no?

 

[khunter1]

Yea a 300MB is kind of small for a Recovery Partition. Those are usually like 10-20 GB not 300 MB. Is there a 100MB parition on there or no?

No there was not any 100 MB partition.There were only two partitions
1) 300 MB OEM Partition
2)Second partition where the Ubuntu was installed.
3)There was not any partition called Recovery partition.
That's why I have been wondering.I don't want to get in trouble like these guys :

http://www.sevenforums.com/installation-setup/79334-delete-format-oem-partition-clean-install.html

http://www.sevenforums.com/bsod-help-support/58400-windows-7-crashed-after-delete-oem-partition.html

Again if it's okay to remove OEM partition,what is the most efficient way ?
(1) "diskpart" ( http://jaredheinrichs.com/how-to-delete-oem-partition.html )
OR
(2)DBAN ( http://www.dban.org/ ).

 

[khunter1]

i dont think you should

Hi,why not ? Any reason please ?

 

[drtweak]

No I would not. 1) Its only 300 megs. Its not a whole lot of space. just enough to fit 1 tv show. 2) There could be critical boot info on there as well. 3) If for some reason you ever do need to access the Dell Utilties it will be there. Best to just leave it alone for the time being.

Also a lot of the time the recovery partition is the ACTIVE partition in windows and most people don't know what do do about that or how to set the right partition as active. Unless you reinstall from Scratch and delete all partitions first i would just leave it. But that only applies to windows. If you got ubuntu on there GRUB might be on there but its easier to fix a linux boot than a windows boot.