Windows 7: Problem XP sees Windows 7 "System Reserved" as C

so i used method 2, having windows 7 installed first. everything worked out perfectly, except this one glitch. i have a 100 MB System Reserved Partition that came with my Windows 7 install, and it doesn't show up on Windows 7 (unless i assign it a drive letter) and in Windows XP... its defaulted as drive C! this means that it doesn't let me change the drive letter, and every time i try to install something it tries to install to drive C, which has only 60 mb left, even though its blank, and i have to tell it to install to E (what windows XP initially mounts itself as)

Please, can you help in any way? it's highly frustrating

Hi!

I have the exact same problem, System Reserved is the C-drive and cannot be changed. XP installation has taken F-drive. I have not found a solution for this anywhere. I have assigned the System Reserved partition drive letter S in Windows 7, but still the same drive letter setup remains in xp.

Does anyone know how this affects the operating system operation and possibly how this could be fixed?
Should the drive letter for System Reserved partition be given in Windows 7 before installing XP or does the drive letter assignment given in Windows 7 even have anything to do with the letter that appears in XP?

Thanks in advance if anyone could shed some light regarding this!
I'll ofcourse post here if i find a solution.

- Dennis

It is best to use EasyBCD 2.0 beta when installing XP last in a Dual Boot with Windows 7, as it sorts out the System Reserved partition drive letter issue better. Hopefully it will be added to the tutorial soon when it exits beta stage. You can use it anyway by doing quick registration in NeoSmart forum.

What I would try is removing XP from Dual Boot from Windows 7 using Easy 2.0 Add/Remove tab.

Then in Disk Mgmt, remove the drive letter from System Reserved partition or change it to "S"

Now Add XP back to Dual Boot in EasyBCD, it should autocomplete drive letter.

If this fails, please post back a screenshot of your full Disk Mgmt drive map and EasyBCD listings page, using Snipping Tool in Start menu - attach using paper clip in Reply box.

Hey Gregrocker,

Thanks for your swift answer!

I tried this. There wasn't an add/remove section anymore though so i removed it from the boot menu, hope that was what you meant. After this i closed easybcd and removed S-association from System Reserved in disk management and then reassigned S for it. I then continued to re-add WinXP and answered yes when the program asked if i wanted it to make some settings automatically regarding dual boot. Rebooted to xp and the setup was the same :(. Screenshots from XP in this, and Windows 7 in a moment.

-D

You are posting screenshots from both XP and Windows 7, so is the Dual Boot Menu now working correctly?

Yes, it works now as it did before. The problem is that the system drive letter in XP is something other than C. Somehow the C-assosiation in XP for System Reserved should be freed so that XP could take the correct drive letter. I don't know if it could somehow be prioritized so that XP could take a letter first and then System Reserved would take the next free one?

Thanks,
Dennis

Can you make only C and D available to the OS drives to see what happens?

I don't know why XP will not change Sys Reserved to S for you. Try again? You may need to remove and Re-Add XP using Easy to let it autocomplete again.

Be aware that you can also remove the Sys Reserved partition and recover the partition space and System MBR into Windows 7, then reestablish the Dual Boot. Let us know if you want to try that.

What do you mean by making only c and d available to the os drives?
D is actually not available at all in Windows 7. I think in XP Windows 7 is D-drive. I tried freeing it, but still it's not selectable in Windows 7.
I tried also changing the boot drive to a usb stick and Windows 7 system drive and now i cant get xp to start at all, it doesn't find ntdlr dir, but i'm not too put off by this since i'm moving towards the 'not caring'-state .
I could really try anything right now if you want me to try something. Otherwise i'll just format the drive and install only xp on it, on which i could propably get the things done i originally needed done (related to something completely else).

Thanks again for your responses.

Oh, i forgot to mention the latest hunch. In XP, as to why System Reserved takes the C-drive letter and ofcourse therefore does not let it be changed has to do with it being the boot drive from which the OS's are started from.

-Dennis

Let's see if the steps will still work to recover the System MBR into Windows 7.

Download and burn to CD free Partition Wizard bootable CD. Boot PW, allow files to load, select 1 for Screen Res, rightclick System Reserved partition to Delete, OK. Next rightclick Windows 7 partition>Modify>Set to Active, OK.

Now right click Windows 7 partition again, select Resize, drag left border over deleted System Reserved space to include in Windows 7 partiiton, OK. Apply all steps.

After PW reboots to finish resizing, boot into Windows 7 DVD Repair console or Repair CD, click throught to Recov Tools list to run Startup Repair up to 3 separate times with reboots to recover System MBR into Windows 7.

After Windows 7 starts, Add XP using EasyBCD 2.0. Accept boot files, autocompletes, restart.

Could you attach a picture of what files are in the System Reserved partition? Make sure you have folder view set to see hiddena and system files.

You can see what is in the partition if it has a drive letter like any other partition. If it does not have a drive letter, you will need to give it one, look from within XP or assign it to a link in the Win 7 partition.

Since I do not know what causes Windows to give a partition the C: designation, maybe some file has been added that might be causing it to go to the System Reserved.