System reserved drives

ajkjr · 30 Dec 2010

I have three "System Reserved" disks each 100mb. I understand there is supposed to be 1 with Windows 7 but why do I have three? I occasionally get "low disk space" warning for these drives. When I look at them under disk management 1 is at 100% used and the other 2 are at 30%. I originally had a RAID 1 setup but it is now broken in case that may have something to do with it. Thanks for any help or direction to information that can help me. Joe

whs · 30 Dec 2010

Retain the one that is "Active" and delete the other 2. You may want to first image them - just in case.

ajkjr · 30 Dec 2010

All three say "active, primary partition" but one says "system, active, primary partition". SHould I keep the one that says system and delete the other two. I assume you mean to do an image of my primary partition (in this case C).

Thanks again.

Joe

whs · 30 Dec 2010

No, I meant to make an image of the little partitions you are about to delete. But that may not be neccessary because instead of deleting them, it may be easier to first set 2 of those little ones to "Logical" (and keep the one that says "system, active, primary). To set them to logical, use the bootable CD of this program ( BEST FREE Partition Manager Software for Windows supports all 32-bit & 64 bit Windows No-server OS. ). The controls are in the Partition tab > Modify.

If that works, we can still delete the partitions. I think that would be the cautious approach.

The advantage of the bootable CD of Partition Wizard is that you can still manipulate the partitions even if the system goes on the blink.

gregrocker · 30 Dec 2010

Yes, you want the System Active partition which is booting Win7. And it should be the only System and/or Active partition.

However, to be sure please post back a screenshot of your full Disk Mgmt drive map with listings, using Snipping Tool in Start Menu.

Always wipe the HD's when reinstalling Win7, or at least delete all partitions.

ajkjr · 31 Dec 2010

Here is screen shot of my drives. Thanks for all the help.

FliGi7 · 31 Dec 2010

Yea, you can delete H and Y without repercussion. The only System Reserved partition you need is on the main boot drive, which appears to be the Z partition.

Bare Foot Kid · 31 Dec 2010

Have a look at Option Two of this tutorial at the link below for an outline of the process needed to recover the space from any "System Reserved" partition you wish to recover into the other partitions though you won't need to do Step Three.

Partition Wizard : Use the Bootable CD

mjf · 31 Dec 2010

Yes to the above.
But I would make your current disk 2 (Z:, C: ) disk 0 with a cable swap. Also I would remove the letter (Z: ) from system reserved. That is, don't assign it a letter. Only assign it a letter on the rare occasion you go inside for a look, then remove the letter.

gregrocker · 31 Dec 2010

Use Partition Wizard bootable CD as suggested to rightclick Delete the non-System 100mb SysReserved partitions, click OK.

then rightclick the adjacent partition next to each deleted 100mb, choose Resize, drag the left grey border to the far left to recover the 100mb, OK.

Next rightclick Z to remove the drive letter, OK, Apply all steps.

When you have a chance rightclick on each partition to Check File System and run a Surface Scan to check disk integrity.

System reserved drives

System reserved drives

System Reserved Drives

System reserved drive