How do i delete the system reserved partition carefully?

D3N · 16 Sep 2014

Hi everyone, ive got a system running windows 7 Ultimate x64 (dual boot) having a couple of drive.
A 250Gb & 1TB. My 250 Gb is where i installed windows and my 1Tb has 2 different partition. Drive D: where is save all my data and drive F: is my other windows installation drive. Long time ago i tried to delete my system reserved drive then my computer doesnt boot up at all. Is there any work around to delete without messing up my system? Thanks

whs · 16 Sep 2014

I think you know the answer. The system reserved partition contains the bootmgr and if you delete is, the system cannot boot.

What you can do is to copy the bootmgr to the C partition. Then the system reserved is no more needed.

Bootmgr - Move to C:\ with EasyBCD

However, I question the wisdom of removing this tiny partition. The amount of space you can gain is extremely minimal and it is not that easy to make use of it.

theog · 16 Sep 2014

You can
Partition - Mark as Inactive
system reserved partition E:
than
Partition or Volume - Delete
system reserved partition E:

If needed you can use EasyBCD to rebuild the boot menu.

gregrocker · 16 Sep 2014

Can you boot into the other OS on DISK0 so we can see if it flags the System Reserved partition on that drive with System flag signifying which partition is booting the OS you're presently booted into?

If not, and you installed the OS on DISk0 with both hard drives plugged in, and you have a Windows Dual Boot menu and are not choosing which OS to boot via the BIOS Boot Menu key, then its possible both OS's are being booted by the System Reserved partition on Disk1.

To further test this unplug DISK1 to see if the OS on DISK0 will boot itself.

Please report back the results of both these tests so we can advise you correctly whether the E: System Reserved can be deleted because it is unused. We can also show you how to make DISK0 independently bootable via the BIOS if it isn't already so that either HD can come and go.