Windows 7: XP Dual Boot issue - 200mb System Partition

My Lenovo y450 notebook came with Windows 7 Premium x64 installed. I set it up to Dual Boot with XP Pro. I used EasyBCD and everything went rather smoothly.
My issue is that XP recognized the 200mb System partition (created by the factory install of Windows 7) as the C partition. This causes issues when attempting to install the XP drivers as they try to extract to the C partition. The driver installation error instructs me to free up more space on the C partition. Note: XP is installed on the D partition.
I have tried several things and after much research, I'm not quite sure what to do. I assigned a drive letter ('S') to the 200mb partition in Windows 7. This didn't change anything in XP. I cannot reassign the drive letter in XP because it is a system drive. I know you can change drive letters of system drives via the registry, however I fear this may screw with the boot files.
Is there any known fix for this? I do not mind installing XP again, if necessary. I was thinking about using a partition utility to temporarily expand the 200mb partition to allow enough space to extract the XP drivers. However, I fear I may encounter other issues in the future with XP installed on the D partition.

Thank you very much for any helpful replies.

Have a read through the second section of this tutorial
Dual Boot Installation with Windows 7 and XP

Can you please post back a screenshot of your full Disk Management drive map, using SNipping Tool in Start Menu, attaching file using paper clip in reply box.

Would you consider: expanding deleted C: Sys Reserved partition to reinstall XP there, then recover the MBR into Windows 7 using Startup Repair from booted Windows 7 DVD, add XP back to Dual Boot using EasyBCD 2.0?

Having a 200 mb partition in the RTM is a little strange. I wonder if Lenovo added something to the normal 100 mb partition?

You can check if it is a standard 100mb System Reserved partition by unhiding Hidden Files and Protected OS files in Control Panel>Folder Options>View tab.

It should look like this:



A standard Sys Reserved partition like this can be deleted (or in your case, formatted to be used as a Primary OS partition) and recovered into Windows 7 partition using Windows 7 DVD Startup Repair.

Thank you very much for the replies. Here are a few screen shots.

Disk Management Windows 7


Disk Management XP


200mb drive - Windows 7

Yes! I would definitely consider that. Sounds like a wonderful idea. If you don't mind, can you take a look at the screen shots I posted and let me know if you think that would work fine?

The hard drive came from Lenovo with 4 partitions.
1) Windows 7 - 250gb
2) Drivers - 30gb (just a single folder with drivers)
3) 200mb (hidden)
4) Recovery - 16gb (hidden)

I burned the drivers to disc and used that partition to install XP.

The 200mb holds the boot files for both Windows 7 and XP. I would delete it to recover MBR into Windows 7, then resize Windows 7 into it's space, make it smaller and create a new XP partition and possibly logical data partition to the right of Windows 7.

To do this, back up your files and a Windows 7 system image externally as resizing operations can fail. Make your Recovery Disks if possible from hidden Recovery partition.

Boot Partition Wizard CD, choose 1 for screen resolution, rightclick 200mb>Delete, OK.

Now right click Windows 7 partition>Modify>Set to Active, then rightclick Resize>drag left border over deleted 200mb space, then drag right border to make room for XP, poss. logical data partition, OK.

Right click unallocated space to create, format XP Primary partition, OK. Ditto Logical Data partition if you wish. Now apply all steps. If necessary, you may need to break these steps into two separate groups.

Boot into Windows 7 DVD Repair console, click through to Recovery Tools to run Startup Repair up to 3 separate times to rewrite MBR to Windows 7 partition.

Install XP, adding it to Dual Boot Menu by following the steps in Method Two here: Dual Boot Installation with Windows 7 and XP

Wow, seems like a bit of a mission. I'm game though. Thank you so much for the detailed instructions. I greatly appreciate your time. I won't have time to try it out for a few days or more, but I will be sure to report back. Thanks again Greg!

It seems complicated, but PW makes it easy with graphical interface, slider buttons, cueing up steps before you Apply them at end.

What wraps it up nicely is that Startup Repair in Windows 7 is automated with all the former bootrec and bootsect commands which had to be typed out. It may require running it up to 3 separate times with reboot as it has multiple issues to fix.