Windows 7: Got tricked into deleting a valid System Reserved Partition

Ok so i put in 3 more Drives into a newly built PC, of which 2 had Windows installed on them.



I formatted one drive, the 160Gb one. Then i tried to delete its System reserved Partition, and when i did this, the System reserved partition on my 1Tb Drive also dissappeared.

Both drives came from seperate PC's.

Now im scared when i take my 1Tb drive back to my other PC at University itll be unable to boot.

Ive used GetDataBack NTFS to see if the files are in tact, and have managed to get all the files back.

But is there a way to restore that System reserved parition?

If not what must i do to get that 1Tb drive to boot in my other PC again?

Hello.


When you get it back to the original PC, leaving it the only HDD connected and that to the #1 SATA port of the motherboard, set it as the second boot device after the CD/DVD drive.

Boot the Windows 7 installation media and mark that Windows 7 partition as Active using Option Two #1 of this tutorial at the link below and run the three separate startup repairs with the restarts to create a set of boot files to that partition for that PC.

Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times

DISKPART : At PC Startup


Be sure to post back with any further questions you may have and to keep us informed.

So glad you replied friend! I have so much data on this drive, so much school work i cannot lose it!

Ok i will do so, i am going back tomorrow evening, so 24hours from now, i will try to post if i can use my neighbours laptop to get online.

Is it not possible to use Option 1 from here: Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times to make my Drive active? As i have the drive slaved in the new PC atm.

Then when i get back to the PC at University, to run the the three startup repairs?

Greg has an excellent idea to recreate the System Reserved partition and making that the "System" partition.


System Reserved : Create Using Disk Management

Here is a picture to explain:

I dont fully understand this, does this mean i can just format it to NTFS as shown, thn replace the files with the ones i recovered? Or must i use Windows Disk to reinstall the OS to populate the reserved parition?

Use Windows disk management to create and format a partition to that unallocated space.

It would have to be connected to the #1 SATA port of the mobo or it won't work.

Then mark the new partition as active and do the startup repairs.

I saw again, this will not work and create an even worse mess if you try it as is.

Ok, so what im going to do is:
On my Home PC, the drive is slaved in port SATA #1.
Ill format the 100Mb Unallocated as NTFS, with Volume Label System Reserved.
Then right click and Mark the System Reserved Partition as Active in Disk Management.
Then at Uni PC, connect the 1TB drive up to SATA #1 as the only HDD connected.
Boot Windows 7 DVD, and launch repair.

This should fix everything?

Undelete the 101mb partition with Best Free Partition Manager Freeware for Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP 32 bit & 64 bit. MiniTool Free Partition Manager Software Home Edition.

Just d/l - it (it's free ) install on your existing o/s , and undelete the partition you deleted by accident.


Do a quick scan of Disk2 - tick ALL the partitions you want to keep, click apply - takes 2 seconds.

Yes that should do the job.