Weird HD partition and capacity after Apple Servicing?

[jb_lyndon]

Just got my eMac back from repair shop and when installing OS noticed that in Disk Utility that the "55.90 GB" HD is partitioned in 3 sections:

1- Name:______
Format: Free Space
Size: 128.00 MB

2- Name: Untitled 1
Format: Mac OS Extended
Size: 49.86 GB

3- Name:______
Format: Free Space
Size: 8.00 KB

Is this normal? or recommended? (maybe a buffer zone on each end of the disk?)

What seems weird is that Disk Utility Information for the volume "Untitled 1" reports a capacity of 55.77 GB.

Can anybody help me understand this?

[dagaz]

This seems very weird. I would ask the repair shop if there was any particular reason they did this (bad inode perhaps?).

[jb_lyndon]

Thanks, I truely appreciate but, "bad inode"? i don't quite (or more importantly) know at all what that might mean.

Should I feel free to Erase the actual "55.90 GB" HD (not only the "Untitled 1" volume) and reinstall OSX or is there a benefit to having some "free space" on either end of the hard disk?

I don't know anything about initializing a hard drive (keep in mind that it is my one and only HD) and I don't want to anything up... It's brand new and i want to do everything I can to start over as clean as possible.

Help Please!

[bobw]

Yes, you can boot from the OS CD and use Drive Utility to wipe the drive and use the way you want, with or without partitions. Will not harm anything.

[ElDiabloConCaca]

It looks like the service shop may have created a "service" or "troubleshooting" partition. Dells actaully ship like that, with certain tools on a small, invisible partition so that the Dell techs can troubleshoot problems.

I would say it's safe to repartition your drive however you like... one big partition, a few smaller ones, whatever. If you're still unsure, give the service guys that did that to your machine a call and check with them.