Boot drive?

gregrocker said:

Hans, there are several errors that can affect performance and give you more drive space if needed.

First, System Reserved partition was cut out when somehow the System boot files were moved to C as signified by the System flag showing which partition is booting the OS, and Active flag pointing to intended System partition. You can delete System Reserved partition in Disk Mgmt or ignore it though it likely has as duplicate set of boot files on it which can be viewed by temporarily assigning it a letter in Disk Mgmt.

Greg, the System Reserved had a drive letter after I installed the new SSD, and I removed it (after reading a little about it on the Web). I added it now again to see what is in the drive ... nothing! I will remove the drive *letter* again, but keep the drive (as someone said one should).

The system flag you are talking about, is that "Boot"? Are you saying that it should also have been "Boot" in System Reserved?

On my wife's computer, Win 7 Ultimate (as I have), but with different hardware/BIOS), this is what I see:

System Reserved: Healthy (System, Active, Primary Partition)

C: Healthy (Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Primary Partition)

(I assume that some of the differences might be due to a different BIOS.)

What should actually be in System Reserved and in C:, and if I do not have it right, can I get it right?

gregrocker said:

There are two other partitions E and L which are marked Active which should not be and will confuse the BIOS, since Active flag as mentioned should only point to the intended System partition. Mark them Inactive now using How to Set Active/Inactive partition -Partition Wizard Video Help.

Okay, I will certainly do this. I also notice that D; and E; are "Primary Partition", while F:, H: and I: are "Logical drives". The truth is, of course, and as you certainly know, that Disk 1 (an HDD) is partitioned into 5 partitions, obviously with 2 other partitions with unallocated space (there may have been 1 only before my "troubles", but I am not sure). What should they all be?

gregrocker said:

You'll want Partition Wizard since it can add the Unallocated space you're wasting to any of the partitions on the same drive that need the space, even if they're not adjacent, using the very cool How to extend partition easily with Partition Wizard - video help. Just right click any partition needing more space to Extend, then borrow as much available space as you want from any Unallocated Space or other partition with space to spare.

Yes, I have done this in the past, and will refresh my rusty brain with the video.

gregrocker said:

Note that you may have 4 Primary partitions total on an MBR disk, or 3 Primary and unlimited adjacent Logicals.

Thank for the info. As you see above, I am not sure about which partitions should be primary and which should not.

Regards,

Hans L

The System flag is the label on the drive which says clearly that C is booting Win7, not System Reserved. There is no guess work involved - if System Reserved is not labeled System Active then it is not bootin Win7. C is booting itself since it now wears those labels. So someone had to move the System boot files to C, possibly using Startup Repairs after C was marked Activ

Boot flag only means the partition that is presently booted.

There is no reason to change it now if it is booting properly. You have a deactivated System Reserved partition which likely has boot files on it that are not being used. You'd have to unhide System Files to see the boot files on any partition. Hidden Files and Folders - Show or Hide - Windows 7 Forums


Unallocated Space is exactly what it says, not a partition, just space sitting there unused which you can annex into any other partition on the same hard drive using the method I gave you.

On the data drive you can afford one more Primary partition or can continue adding as many other Logicals as you want. If you're happy with the partitions you have then you can simply adjust their sizes using the PW Extend feature which can borrow or give space from/to any other partition whether it is adjacent or not, Primary or Logical.

I prefer one large Data partition so it isn't necessary to adjust sizes. There is really no reason to have a bunch of them since you can sort easier into folders rather than partitions.

On quick question: can you inactivate a partition with the free version of Partition Magic?

Hans L

gregrocker said:

The System flag is the label on the drive which says clearly that C is booting Win7, not System Reserved. There is no guess work involved - if System Reserved is not labeled System Active then it is not bootin Win7. C is booting itself since it now wears those labels. So someone had to move the System boot files to C, possibly using Startup Repairs after C was marked Activ

Boot flag only means the partition that is presently booted.

There is no reason to change it now if it is booting properly. You have a deactivated System Reserved partition which likely has boot files on it that are not being used. You'd have to unhide System Files to see the boot files on any partition. Hidden Files and Folders - Show or Hide - Windows 7 Forums

Okay, so what you are saying is that I should actually set C: as inactive and set System Reserved as active, but I do not have to if all works now (which it does).

I unhid System Files and Hidden Files in System Reserved, but could still see no files or folders. However, 35 MB was used, so there must be something.

gregrocker said:

Unallocated Space is exactly what it says, not a partition, just space sitting there unused which you can annex into any other partition on the same hard drive using the method I gave you.

Sure, I will use the unused space, although I certainly do not need it now.

gregrocker said:

On the data drive you can afford one more Primary partition or can continue adding as many other Logicals as you want. If you're happy with the partitions you have then you can simply adjust their sizes using the PW Extend feature which can borrow or give space from/to any other partition whether it is adjacent or not, Primary or Logical.

What would the advantage be to label one more partition as Primary?

gregrocker said:

I prefer one large Data partition so it isn't necessary to adjust sizes. There is really no reason to have a bunch of them since you can sort easier into folders rather than partitions.

I have so many different areas of life as data that I find it great to have them in different partitions.

One more question: I currently do not have more data that that I could put all of it on the SSD (512 GB). Should i do it?

Regards,

Hans L

AddRAM said:

Drive letters are automatically named and arranged properly if they are hooked up to the system when you install windows. But if they are named already but added later, they could be screwed up. You have to change the letters manually.

No it doesn`t matter, I`m just silly like that

No, don`t change C to inactive. C is perfect now, you just have to delete the system reserved partition and add it to C

Is L an external hard drive ? If not that should not be marked active either.

Thanks! Hans L