Early Dell Inspiron Mini 9 Units Ship With Limiting Partition Error

Dell Inspiron Mini 9 netbooks with Ubuntu Linux initially only recognized 4GB of hard disk space, regardless of whether you ordered a 4GB, 8GB or 16GB.

Dell’s error was in using the exact disc same image to format every single Mini 9 loaded with Ubuntu, regardless of the actual size of the hard drive. This means at first all Ubuntu Mini 9s operated with 4GB, period, no matter what you paid for.

Dell has responded to this problem quickly, and as of Friday all future Inspiron Mini 9s recognized the entirety of their hard drive capacity. While this does not solve the problem for the unlucky purchasers of the early units, Dell recommends using the system restore disc to reinstall Dell’s custom version of Ubuntu Linux. This will reformat the entire drive and give you your space back, although it does require an external optical drive (the Mini has no internal drive).

You can also attempt to repartition manually, although this requires at least some expertise. Again, Dell is aware of this problem and you can always try their customer support line.