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I wasn't thinking of removing System Reserved, figuring that it is necessary. But I notice on C drive there is that with 100mb, plus two other unallocated partitions with 128kb and 1mb that I don't know what to make of. Can't recall seeing them on my previous Win 7 SSD.
Merge J & O into O, to make more room for backup images. Actually, I've got J down to a basic logical partition, but the partition manager has it grayed out for merging and there's another partition to the left between it and O that prevents expanding O directly. I guess the solution is to combine partitions to the left and then resize and combine to the right.
Last edited by highstream; 01 May 2012 at 18:25.
You can use Partition Wizard to try and cleanup bits of unallocated. Merging O and J will require a bit of fiddling. Again Partition Wizard is the tool I would use.
The free version doesn't support "merge". I would backup the 2nd partition, delete it and resize the 1st partition into it. Also, If you only plan 4 partitions on this drive then they can be made primary again with PW. More than 4 and your HDD will go dynamic - this is bad.
Re: your initial problem this may help
Windows 7 image backup, error not enough space for shadow copy
So you wanna delete J (can be done safely in win7)
Now using partition wizard How to Move/Resize Partition with partition manager? Partition Wizard Move/Resize Partition Video Help.
Take the right partition!! Drive letters in win7 are diffirent as in partition wizard. Check drive letters after starting win7. Eventually correct them.
- move G to the left
- there's now unused space between G and O
- extend O so let it use the "unused space"
Partition Wizard Bootable CD allows user to manage partition directly with partition manager bootable CD.
Free download Magic Partition Manager Software, partition magic alternative, free partition magic, partition magic Windows 7 and server partition software - Partition Wizard Online take the last one so "bootable CD (ISO)". Burn that ISO on CD/DVD and boot from it.
Post results please.
Wanna delete "system reserved" as well? Only possible if you don't use and don't wanna use bitlocker. I post steps if you want
Bootmgr - Move to C:\ with EasyBCD
Try to boot afterwards. As always if having trouble booting perform Startup Repair
C partition is active and booting fine? Now you can delete "system reserved" from within "disk management"
Oh, so that's what the Sys Reserved is. No, Unlocker comes in handy now and again.
While you were posting, I finally remembered what to do with the partitions and had already downloaded Partition Wizard free (I have been using EASEUS, but decided to check out alternatives). So yes, it's pretty nifty although the free edition lacks Merge (the button is there but not the functionality). In any case, it all worked out (pending a reboot... - successful). See the screenshot - Disk 2. Any ideas about that unallocated 1mb (0.52mb)? It doesn't seem available for combining with its neighbors.
Also, how could I have gotten rid of the XP Clone partition (J) without wiping/reformatting it and then having to restore the C drive backup image? That was necessary to boot into Windows.
The way you go about "Merge J&O into O" to quote will depend what data you want to preserve. If you have data on G I suggest you back it up before you do anything.
If you use the EasyBCD tool you will lose your system reserved. If you don't want to lose it you can simply extend it with PW
How to Move/Resize Partition with partition manager? Partition Wizard Move/Resize Partition Video Help.
I suggest you make it 200MB
The other way to often fix your type of imaging problem is to delete USN journal files from the system reserved with the fsutil command. These are often cleared over time by the OS.
Last edited by mjf; 01 May 2012 at 20:31. Reason: typo
Thanks, G drive is the SyncBack backup of C. Unlike the system image, that backup gives me direct access to files and folders and some synchronization regularly.
With the J&O merge, I didn't need my old XP system drive (clone - J) anymore, so it could be wiped clean. But the problem wiping and/or reformatting was that Win 7 (C) wouldn't boot, meaning to get it going I had to restore the backup image we discussed earlier. So I was thinking there has to be a better way to do this. Hence, my question. Suggestions for doing that next time? Many thanks!
Hello Highstream,
I had the same problem as you and mine was caused by the system reserved partition too.
Not sure why microsoft only made it 100mb as it's too small. It was 200mb in the windows 7 beta and in Windows 8 it's 350mb.
I used Easeus to extend mine to 350mb but I also keep a copy of the Windows Recovery Folder (WinRE) on mine too. I've never had any problems creating an image since.
I haven't used partition wizard boot cd but I hear it's very good. A lot of users on here recommend it.
J was just a primary partition. Although it was active, you didn't boot from it. Could be deleted without issues (It wasn't used at all). Or didn't even contain pagefile, hibernation file etc I assume.
Did you try "startup repair" after removing J? This wil give you a clue what is wrong. I don't understand why it didn't boot. What was the error message when booting?