When I open the defragmentor under the disk it show C: of course but under that I have another one labeled "System Reserved" and I have no idea what it is. I only have one hard drive installed at the moment and my external isn't plugged in, but it will let me defrag or analayze it... anyone know what this is? or why it is there?
Buck11:
Welcome to SF!
The Reserved Partition is Windows 7's Boot Partition.
My advice? Leave it alone.
It should only be about 100MB and is necessary for your system to start.
It can be removed/moved, but you'll have to jump through a lot of hoops and I don't think it's worth the trouble and risk.
What you're seeing is a small (100 meg probably) partition that Windows 7 creates at install time. Haven't sorted out what all it's used for, but it hasn't bothered me so I just ignore it.
ahh that's what I hoped lol I wasn't sure though. I'll just leave it alone.
Thanks for your help. :)
Besides being the System Active partition for Win7, SysReserved partition conveniently places the Repair console (normally only on the DVD/Repair CD) on the Advanced Boot Tools menu accessed by tapping F8 at bootup. So you can repair your Win7 in a coffee shop.
Scan code for F8 is reserved by MS for boot tools but no one has been able to explain (when I have asked) what role the 100MB system reserved partition plays in this.
Back to Your Question:
Under defrag options I have
(1) Normal (letter assigned) partitions
(2) SYSTEM RESERVED (100MB partition)
(3) PQSERVICE - a hidden factory recovery partition!!!!!
What do these have in common - they are primary partitions.
I'm a bit amazed that (2), (3) show up as options and I would LEAVE THEM ALONE.
The separate system reserved partition shouldn't have a letter assigned and the only thing the user need touch is the BCD store using BCDEDIT or a program like EasyBCD. (for multi boot purposes).
Last edited by mjf; 09 Dec 2010 at 21:32.
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