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Joined on 05/21/2007 Posts: 44
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Inspiron Mini 9 with Ubuntu Linux - 8GB and 16 GB Hard Drives Not Fully Formatted

20 October , 04:00 PM

Several customers (notably feranick and aysui on IdeaStorm) and tech websites (Boy Genius Report, Gizmodo, and Mobile Computer Mag) have pointed out that 8GB and 16GB drives on the Inspiron Mini 9 with Ubuntu Linux are not fully formatted. The manufacturing facility has only been partitioning the hard drives up to 4GB, leaving the extra space on the hard drive unformatted. This essentially leaves that space unuseable by customers until it is partitioned and formatted by the operating system. This problem has been corrected in our factory, and future shipments of the Mini 9 with Ubuntu Linux should have fully-formatted hard drives.

Update from Lionel: On Friday last week, John posted details on a fix for this issue.

For customers wishing to be able to use the extra unformatted disk space immediately, if you purchased a USB DVD drive with your Mini, you may use the system restore DVD included with your system to completely reinstall the operating system. The installation process will completely reformat the entire hard drive and reinstall the OS, allowing you access to the entire drive. If you use this method, be sure to back up any data you have on the system, as this process will overwrite all data on the drive.

We're working on a simple method for customers to use to format/reclaim the unused hard drive space without reinstalling the OS. As our expert Linux customers know, there are several methods for doing this. However, we're evaluating which methods are both the easy and safe to use. I'll post that information soon when we have a recommendation.

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Chris K
25 Oct 2008 06:15 PM

I have a Dell Mini 9 with Ubuntu, 1GB RAM and 16 GB SSD.  I had the partition error and adjusted it by booting from  USB drive and adjusting the partition.  Then a couple of days later I realized that I should probly make a few other changes.

1) Wipe the drive format the whole drive as ext2 instead of ext3, to reduce journal writing to the SSD, this may be a wear issue.  For the same reason I did not create a swap partition, heck I have 1GB of RAM so swap is not really in big demand.

2) I downloaded and installed Ubuntu distro instead of installing from the Dell disk.

I get over 3 hours of use: video flv files, skpe via wifi, and surfing all great.

Cheers. . .
 
Lionel_Menchaca
26 Oct 2008 10:25 AM

Chris K.: Sorry we caused you all that trouble. Just so you and other readers of this thread are aware, John posted a fix for this issue last week.

 
maynardmurlon
23 Oct 2008 07:06 PM

The mini-9 is really a good innovation for Dell. Hopefully, they won't limit the HDD (SSD) size to only 16gb as the mini-9 could prove to be useful with enough disk drive space in it, say about 350 Gigs? :)

Anyway, I hope Dell is going to re-release the mini-9 with an optical drive, max mem up to 4gb (that's not bad) and an SSD of around 160gb. :) Way to go Dell, hopefully this gets released during Xmas!
 
Christian
23 Oct 2008 09:32 AM

gparted is able to resize partitions. I have used it to successfully resize a Windows NTFS partition. It was the System partition and has worked without data loss. Afterwards I was able to resize the / ext3 partition to use the freed space.
 
Chris Puttick
22 Oct 2008 09:23 AM

Ok, as promised, a CIO's guide to fixing the partitioning problem on the fly and without a reboot...

You can do all of this through graphical tools if you like, but the command line is easier for much of it so I've mixed and matched...

sudo apt-get install gparted pysdm (or use your preferred package manager)

sudo gparted

In gparted right-click on the free space at the bottom and select new. Choose ext3 as the partition type and leave the rest alone (unless, like me, you want a swap partition for old times sake)

Apply your changes and close gparted.

Now run

mkdir /tmp/home (or use your favourite graphical file management tool to create a new folder)

sudo mount /dev/sda3 /tmp/home (or use pysdm - see later)

sudo chmod 777 /tmp/home

cp -r /home/* /tmp/home/

sudo umount /tmp/home

sudo pysdm

In pysdm select the partition you created in parted (sda3 by default) and accept the enable option, then browse for the mountpoint and select /home. Then click mount. Exit pysdm.

Done... :) No reboot, not even plugged into the power yet.

Probably better in the long term to download the gparted liveCD ISO and use that to resize the main partition. I just like the fact that Linux meant I could fix it on the fly 8)
 
Justin
22 Oct 2008 08:39 AM
Dell should come public with why there is such a delay on these. I ordered 9-8 and I have a ship date of November 12.
 
Chris Puttick
22 Oct 2008 07:34 AM

Yes, they definitely shipping, I have one sitting on my desk as I speak. Runs rather fast with Ubuntu. I have the half-partitioned disk error - will post shortly my fix in easy steps...
 
rick
22 Oct 2008 07:22 AM

Off topic? when will the mini 9 with ubuntu be available in australia?
 
Mike
21 Oct 2008 09:53 AM

So the Ubuntu versions of the Mini 9 are shipping?

I have had a order for the Windows version of the Mini 9 since Sept 13th and my current order status shows delivery week of Nov 20-24.  I have been working with my salesperson on why the order is taking so long, the first order was canceled over the Adobe Acrobat version. The corrected order now has been bumped again - is there a parts shortage? I have been told there is a shortage of the black case.

I was hoping to try out both Ubuntu and Windows on the Mini 9.
 
Simon
20 Oct 2008 04:30 PM

Take a look at GParted, which uses a combination of libparted and other filesystem specific commands  (you probably only care about ext3) to support filesystem resizing in place.