Some Inspiron Mini 9s shipping with partition issues

Early Dell Inspiron Mini 9 customers who sprung for a larger drive may want to check their partitions -- Dell apparently used a static 4GB Ubuntu image during some initial manufacturing runs, leaving the OS in a 4GB partition and the remainder unused. The problem's been fixed now, but if you were unlucky enough to get one of the wrongly-formatted units, Dell's saying that you'll need to restore from the System Restore disk, but there are some live partition options out there if you're feeling brave.

[Via Boy Genius Report]

[MrMac @ Oct 19th 2008 6:46PM]

Love the pencil.

Looks like to me the Dell is only 3 inches long!

[AlekZander @ Oct 19th 2008 6:58PM]

MY Dell is 8 inches.

[Ryan @ Oct 19th 2008 7:13PM]

You both fail at jokes.

[BB @ Oct 19th 2008 9:15PM]

You'll both get viruses

[nutzareus @ Oct 20th 2008 1:39AM]

That's what she said.

[Matt H @ Oct 19th 2008 7:04PM]

Booting off a GParted Live CD with a USB DVDrom will allow you to resize the FS.

[Randavance @ Oct 19th 2008 9:26PM]

Or just open a shell, say "sudo apt-get install gpart", and use the point and grunt gparted tool to partition the remainder into a home directory and use a symbolic link to neaten things up.

The base OS only needs a couple gigs. It's actually a great idea if you want some convenience to your upgrade routine.

[High Ranks make you sterile @ Oct 19th 2008 9:37PM]

Or you should use gparted and make an additional FAT32 partition for when you have to format the EXT3 partition with Ubuntu because Ibex is HORRIBLE.

Send me them Low Ranks I be cravin'

[Matt H @ Oct 20th 2008 1:35AM]

@Randavance

You raise a very good point! :P

[Ryan @ Oct 19th 2008 7:12PM]

I installed Vista off the bat with 2gb of ram and it's running faster than XP. I'm loving it. Anyone who says Vista would run like shit is spreading FUD.

[DefPo3t @ Oct 19th 2008 7:17PM]

and what does that have to do with this ubuntu partition problem

[nerdtalker @ Oct 19th 2008 7:30PM]

I agree. Almost all the initial bugs have been worked out, almost _all_ of them.

[Jon @ Oct 19th 2008 7:43PM]

Yeah ! i run vista x64 with 8GB of RAM its fast .. wait this is about mini dell .. um .. ahhh

[Kamokazi @ Oct 19th 2008 7:46PM]

While I use Vista on most of my personal Windows PCs now, and have installed it on several clients at work, it definately DOES NOT run faster than XP. Not at all. I've installed it on everything from single-core athlon 64's w/ 1GB up through Dual Xeon Quads with 16GB (Put it on a server, for kicks), and XP is noticably quicker on all most of the PCs, even without Aero enabled.

I really, really like Server 2008. It's the first time I've actually used a Server OS as a workstation. While I generlly never recommended '03 for workstations, Server '08 feels like it works better as a desktop OS for some reason.

[glitch @ Oct 19th 2008 7:20PM]

I got my Dell Mini 9 with Ubuntu and the 16GB SSD amd noticed this the other day. Had a 10GB "unallocated space" segment. Threw Parted Magic on a thumbdrive and made it bootable (instrux are on Parted Magic website), booted with it (you need to change the bios boot order), ran GParted and extended the primary partition to use all the unallocated space. Very easy fix. Although I noticed something else strange that I can't explain - in the "Disk Space Analyzer" app it appears that I have 30GB of HDD rather than the 15GB I'd expect. Is some DoubleDisk-type application running on these? Anyone else notice this?

[WK @ Oct 19th 2008 7:45PM]

Go into the preferences and you'll notice that it's counting the file system and the physical partition, doubling the size and usage. Uncheck one to fix.

[Ayman @ Oct 19th 2008 7:21PM]

Which is better Dell Mini 9 or the Acer Aspire One A150
cause i wanna buy a Netbook and narrowed it down to these 2 for cost/benefit features (and yes it must be windows OS)

[Ryan @ Oct 19th 2008 7:30PM]

I have the Mini, and I've gotten a torrent of compliments from passerbys. It's very well made, and while the keyboard isn't perfect, it isn't as flawed as it might look. The Aspire One beats it in the price category, but I honestly believe that the Dell is worth the slight price increase.

[JWD @ Oct 20th 2008 11:31AM]

I got a Dell Mini mostly because I wanted a SSD for better portability. I have been quite happy with it.

[WK @ Oct 19th 2008 7:49PM]

That's not the only problem with the Ubuntu version. Users who upgraded their units with a 2GB stick of RAM are finding that the kernel Dell is using is maxing out at 1GB (it actually reports 883MB available.)

[giuliop @ Oct 19th 2008 7:51PM]

"but there are some live partition options out there if you're feeling brave."

Feeling brave? Is this a geek blog or a sissy end-user diary?

[Mile @ Oct 19th 2008 9:46PM]

And the difference is?

[glitch @ Oct 19th 2008 7:58PM]

Thanks WK.

PS- Another trick with the Dell Mini 9 Ubuntu is you can ditch the Dell custom desktop manager and run the standard Hardy interface. Definitely recommened...I wasted hours trying to set up icons to make the Dell interface useable before noticing this. Feels much more like a "real" machine with the standard desktop.

[solarpos @ Oct 19th 2008 8:05PM]

A women's Dell Mini 9 is 9, a man's Dell Mini 9 is 6, unless he's running OSeX

[Wiizer @ Oct 19th 2008 8:30PM]

At least they don't have graphic card defects.... Damn NVIDIA.

Has anyone sued them yet?

[solarpos @ Oct 19th 2008 9:19PM]

Cool, I'm now in the lowranked, shaded out club.

[OCEAN 'CLAK' 20th @ Oct 19th 2008 9:27PM]

welcome to the club of apple OSX lovers

[Connor @ Oct 19th 2008 9:20PM]

Make that two times.

[UnixSystemsEngineer @ Oct 19th 2008 10:41PM]

So mount the remaining space elsewhere. I fail to see the fatal problem here.

[kentavos @ Oct 20th 2008 10:26AM]

So, this is why my mini was delayed another three weeks?

[Jeff @ Oct 21st 2008 5:57PM]

Mine shipped with this error. 1.2 out of 16GB.