Windows 7: Installing new SSD.. turns into System Reserved?

My system has Windows 7 installed on a 120GB SSD, I have a 1TB HD and a 64GB SSD for data.

I have been running this for about 5 months.

I just installed another 120GB SSD, turned my PC back on and the drive has a System Reserved label and only seems to be 90MB?



All the posts I have researched, only relate to new installs and the System Reserved being a partition on the OS drive or something of the like..

Could anyone tell me how to fix my situation.. I just want to have another 120GB drive as a data dump and install software on.

Thanks in advance

Hello Steele, welcome to Seven Forums!

Please post a snip of a maximized Windows 7 disk management for a look before we make any suggestions, Windows 7 has issues with recognizing the HDD/SSDs in the correct order sometime and this may be the case.

How to Upload and Post a Screenshot

Could I just remove and add it again?

It also seems to be showing it twice?

Why do you say twice? I see 64, two 120s, and a 1 TB. Is that not correct?

You have 2 System Reserved partitions.

You should only have 1 and it should be on the same disk as C, which is disk 1 in your case.

Disk 2 appears to have no partitions at this point.

Well C = 120GB
D = 64GB
G = 1TB
E = 120GB?
F = 120GB?

E&F both have System Reserved next to them?

I just want the new 120GB to act like the 64GB?

Could the 1TB have an older Windows 7 partition on it?

Oh I think I see,

Disk 0 is the 64
disk 1 is the 1tb, but it has a partition
disk2 is the new 120GB SSD, it needs to be allocated?
disk 3 is my ols 120GB SSD with my OS on it

So Should I collapse the partition on the 1tb somehow?

Then alloate? not sure what that means, the new 120GB SSD?
Do I just create a new simple volume on this one?

Sorry, a bit slow, but think I am slowly getting it...

My course of action will be:

Format the F partiction on the G drive and then shrink the drive
Create a simple drive on the Disk2

that should do it?

But I am a little unsure what Active means on the F drive on Disk1?

Will I need it?

Not sure I am following you.

Windows is on Disk 3. Is that where you want Windows?

Disk 1 appears to be completely empty, no data.

What is the purpose of disks 0, 1, and 2? To hold data only? Or to hold some type of operating system?

System Reserved partitions do not normally have drive letters. I'm guessing you did that?

If this is a single operating system PC, the typical way to install Windows is to first disconnect all hard drives other than the one to which Windows is installed. Looks like you did not do that.

If you had done that, you would have 1 System Reserved, marked active, with C on the same drive.

You could mark the E partition active, then disconnect disk 1 entirely, and see if the PC will boot. If it does, then reconnect disk 1 and delete the system reserved partition from it.

If that fails, I'd probably start from scratch---disconnect all drives other than the one that you want to have Windows, and then reinstall.

Disconnect Disk 1 and see whether your system boots.

Here's the best way forward.


Power down the PC and disconnect all the HDD/SSDs and reconnect the SSD that is now connected to disk 3 to the #1 SATA port of the motherboard leaving all the others disconnected, then in the PC BIOS set that as the first boot device.

Then using Option Two of this tutorial mark that System Reserved as the Active partition and do the 3 separate startup repairs in Option One to make that the System partition.

Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times

After that's done you can power down and reconnect the other HDD/SSDs