Boot Windows 7 from Logical

I wanted to show this works and as the saying goes "pics or it didn't happen" so here they are.

This link below has additional information on this subject.

Boot Windows 7 from a Logical Partition


I started with Windows 7 Pro installed, I used that to shrink C: and create the 300MB space that I would use as a "System, Reserved" partition, I also used Windows to create the 30GB E: partition; then booted Partition Wizard and converted E: to an "Extended, Logical" partition.

I then booted the W_7 installer and installed W_7 Ultimate to the now Logical partition, the finished install can be seen in these snips.

I then booted back to PW and first I created the "System, Reserved" partition.

I then did a complete wipe/delete of the W_7 Pro C: partition.

I then set the new "System, Reserved" partition as "Active".

I wanted to make sure this wasn't accomplished because I used a Windows 7 full installer, so I downloaded the "System Recovery Disk" from NeoSmart to do the startup repairs with; Option Two in this tutorial at the link below.

How to Create a Windows 7 System Repair Disc

I then booted the NeoSmart recovery CD and did 3 separate startup repairs with a system restart between each repair to create boot files to the created "System, Reserved" partition; out-lined in this tutorial below.

Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times

Here's the end result. :)

I wanted to make sure that the full Windows Recovery Environment was present to do what it's designed to do, so here that is also.

Nice information and well documented.

I've seen this before, done by accident.

Good work.

Hello Dave, thanks.



I know you didn't mean it this way but I didn't 'bump' into this, I've been working to sort this for over 6 weeks when I started this tutorial; have a look at the snips below; it was just too much information for a single tutorial (I had it almost finished and started over) so I decided to do it the way I did.

Have a look at the very last Information box in the tutorial.



I started with an install of Vista and used the PWBD to shrink the partition to the left.

Dual Boot : Create Partitions Using PWBD

Then I created the 2 partitions (SysResv and W_7) then marked the SysResv active and installed Windows 7 to it's partition.

This is what I had wen I was finished.

Hi Ted, you're right, I didn't mean it that way.

An interesting project, I have been wondering about this since I first saw it done accidentally.

It's good to see it tried and tested, these results will be helpful for this scenerio.

Hello again Dave.



There are a lot of useful scenarios for this; here's another that's more of a how-to than this one, if you haven't seen it yet.


Boot Windows 7 from a Logical Partition

Thank you! for this well explained tutorial!

You're welcome Denis, I'm glad you find it useful.

I just wanted to bring this around again for those that haven't seen it yet.