Windows 7: Windows 7 on 2 system partitions

hi,



I just reinstalled Windows 7 64x yesterday and was surprised that disk management shows 2 system partitions.

C is boot with Windows 7, D is a primary partition on the same drive, F is a 500gb partition that is also a system partition.

Windows wont boot without both C and F

Is there anyway to make C the only system partition and make windows start up from it only without having to reinstall everything?

I also noticed D isnt recognized when trying to reinstall windows without F present so I would have to wipe C and D (the whole drive) and start over which I would really like to avoid.

Mark the F: partition INACTIVE.
Partition - Mark as Inactive

Will Windows still work though?

I tried it and doesnt work, got a BOOTMGR missing. I didnt mistakenly make a partition active anyway...

Any other ideas?

Mark F Inactive, assure C is still marked Actve, reboot into BIOS setup to set Windows 7 HD first HD to boot, after DVD drive.

From booted Windows 7 DVD or Repair CD - System Repair Disk run Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times until Windows 7 again starts and C is marked System Active.

The repair function like the installer itself should write the system boot files to the first active partition, so something caused it to skip C during install (which always marks Active) and write the boot files to F. Did you perchance install to F? You should have a Dual Boot menu if so.

If it interferes again, unplug F while you do these repairs.

Simply run the startup repair AS GREG SUGGESTED, until windows boots again. It looks like you now have 2 installs of 7. 1 on C and 1 on F. Is that what you meant to do ?

First time it repaired and restarted but second time it doesnt want to repair.. "System repair cannnot repair this computer automatically"

This is the report if its useful at all:
Repair: Partition table repair.
Result: Failed, error code = 0x490

It just repaired by setting F active again.

Whats really bothering me is disk with F is now the first disk or "disk 0" in management, it always does this and is probably the real cause of the problem but I dont know why it does it???

I installed only once on C, I never touched other partitions...

Please mark C Active, unplug F drive, run Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times with reboots, no matter what it reports.

Make sure C drive is set first HD to boot in BIOS setup, after DVD drive.

Once C starts, plug F back in but assure C stays set first HD to boot.

Well I tried again, marking C active, marking F inactive, unplugging F then restarting.

Yes, I am running repair 3 times no matter what, what im trying to say is it doesnt finish and restarts, It gives me a failed message and offers me to send the problem to Microsoft!! and sends me back to the repair options menu.