Modify startup repair partition

I think you are looking at a hidden partition. Is this a factory computer or custom built? If factory you are probably looking at essentially your windows disc, drivers, factory bloatware, ect all lumped together on a partition. The reason you can't get rid of it is because you have an OEM copy of windows and if you delete it you won't be able to use that copy of windows anymore. OEM is different then retail windows. Some computer companies lock the partition to the drive for a number of reasons: to force you to buy new parts from them, so you don't lose the data, because its cheaper, because they have a special arrangement with Microsoft.

You can probably remove it if you nuke the drive with Dban or repartition with Gparted in linux but you will most likely lose that copy of windows forever. The product key will sometimes only work with a certain partition.

Sorry, yeah your right. I was reading multiple threads and got confused.

I'm trying to make it so when the "Starting Windows" screen comes up and I press ctrl alt del and it goes to startup repair, instead of displaying the auto-repair dialog, notepad launches instead. That's exactly what I want to do. The part I'm stuck at is 7-zip is giving me "No such interface supported" errors when I try to modify the wim image.

Thank you so much SIW2. Any way to do it with 7-zip or a graphical app? I was trying to delete X:\setup.exe and replace it with notepad renamed. I can explain what I'm doing but it might not make sense:

There's a glitch in RE with notepad that allows you to modify any file on the hdd, regardless of who owns it. The file open window is the trick.

Normally, you would have to wait for start up repair to finish it's diagnostic and THEN open the diagnostic report in notepad.

Now though, I can restart the computer, press ctrl alt del and viola! Unrestricted hdd access!

Did I say something wrong?

OK, so I stopped using 7-zip and used dism. Now though, the mounted image is read only. I didn't use the /readonly option, so why is it doing that?