Windows 7: Installing W7 with a partition

Hi everyone ... I just installed Windows 7 home clean with an Microsoft OEM disc unto a reformatted hard drive , afterwards I notice under " Disk Management " that the installment created a partition . Is this normal with a clean install on a single hard drive ? It would seem that it place the boot up files unto a small partition and the rest of windows on the c drive .

TIA ...

Yep, its normal. Have a read of this thread for more info - What's on that 100MB partition? Can I delete it?

That your WinPe repair partiton.

Leave it alone. It is only 100MB. Just be aware that it counts against you maximum of 4 primary or 3 primary and 1 extended partion count. So if you create another primary partition, you better make the next one an extended partition. Else you will be stuck with the count of 4.

Thanks for the link and info ... I'm just glad its normal when doing a clean install

Yeah I did leave it alone , thanks ... Though I'm not sure whether your right about this 4 count primary partition because when I view my Disk Management with all my ( 5 ) drives , they all have the word primary on them

It is 4 primary partitions per drive. If you have multiple drives, you can have 4 primaries on each drive.

When yiou first partition and format a drive with other then the drive tools on the 7 dvd you may not even see the 100mb section there. The startup repair and other tools found in the repair tools section on the installation disk are set up as a boot option in the F8 menu explaining the 100mb of data while not being a totally separate primary but simply reserved drive space such as seen for restore points.

When seeing that present on the drive it means you won't have to boot from the 7 dvd in order to use the tools themselves. When using using other drive tools for creating the OS primary 7 will go on the item for ths startup repair may still be seen but with no files present. You're better off with them present just in case.

Okay , I get what you mean now ... If I was to use all 4 for each drive ? I would be very close I bet in running out of letters

Thanks

I kind of like it even knowing I have Acronis True Image as well , though its always better to be safe than sorry and a 100mb isn't much ....