Solved Thought related to dual boot

[koolkat77]

koolkat, it's not worth the effort if things go wrong with your system.

Just take greg's advice and leave well alone. More grief for the sake of 100MB drive space just isn't worth it.

alrighty then

 

[seavixen32]

Koolkat, I wish my wife would do she is told with the same good grace you have done!

 

[koolkat77]

Koolkat, I wish my wife would do she is told with the same good grace you have done!

:roflmao:
nice

 

[NoelDP]

Leave System Reserved alone. It needs no attention except to avoid messing with it. I don't now how it ended up in the middle of the drive, but it must have been moved there.

The common reason that the SR partition is 'in the middle' of the drive is that the manufacturers put it there - having put the Recovery partition(s) first on the disk, the only place it can then go is the next available free space (Mine starts around 25GB in). The important thing, as you say, is to leave well alone

 

[koolkat77]

Leave System Reserved alone. It needs no attention except to avoid messing with it. I don't now how it ended up in the middle of the drive, but it must have been moved there.

The common reason that the SR partition is 'in the middle' of the drive is that the manufacturers put it there - having put the Recovery partition(s) first on the disk, the only place it can then go is the next available free space (Mine starts around 25GB in). The important thing, as you say, is to leave well alone

So does it mean I didn't make the partitions correctly? I'm not sure so

 

[NoelDP]

It's not a problem.
I suspect that what happened was that you installed Win 7 first, then installed Vista into free space - this by default will have created the new System Reserved partition in the first available space on the disk.
You then set Win 7 as the default boot.

The SR partition probably still holds the boot records for both Vista and WIn7 - but because there's no Vista any more, and the default is for Win7, it's booting to that.
It's not exactly pretty - but unless it starts barfing, leave it alone

 

[seavixen32]

I agree. If your system is booting alright, you've nothing to worry about.

As the saying goes: If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

You're worrying unnecessarily and you should know by now, if you do get any more problems, you know where to come for good advice.

 

[koolkat77]

It's not a problem.
I suspect that what happened was that you installed Win 7 first, then installed Vista into free space - this by default will have created the new System Reserved partition in the first available space on the disk.
You then set Win 7 as the default boot.

The SR partition probably still holds the boot records for both Vista and WIn7 - but because there's no Vista any more, and the default is for Win7, it's booting to that.
It's not exactly pretty - but unless it starts barfing, leave it alone

alright. thank you for the explanation though

I agree. If your system is booting alright, you've nothing to worry about.

As the saying goes: If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

You're worrying unnecessarily and you should know by now, if you do get any more problems, you know where to come for good advice.

thanks again I was not worried anymore after what you told me last night
I was just wondering if I will have to reinstall again cause you guys said SR wasn't in the place its supposed to be. I will do a clean install once again when I purchase 2 more gigs of ram later, but thanks to all the three of you anyway

 

[seavixen32]

Obviously, it is your choice, but there is absolutely no need to re-install Windows if you decide to install more RAM.

 

[NoelDP]

I will do a clean install once again when I purchase 2 more gigs of ram later, but thanks to all the three of you anyway

I agree with SeaVixen - unless you're currently using the 32-bit version of Windows, there is no need to reinstall when increasing the RAM.
Even if you have the 32-bit version, unless the additional RAM takes you over 4GB, there's still no need to reinstall.

 

[koolkat77]

I will do a clean install once again when I purchase 2 more gigs of ram later, but thanks to all the three of you anyway

I agree with SeaVixen - unless you're currently using the 32-bit version of Windows, there is no need to reinstall when increasing the RAM.
Even if you have the 32-bit version, unless the additional RAM takes you over 4GB, there's still no need to reinstall.

Ooooooooooooooookay
you guys are sooooooooo filled with information
thank you !

 

[seavixen32]

Before you splash out on more RAM, download and run the Crucial memory scanner, which will show the best memory configuration for your computer.

Anything more than 4GB is total overkill as you have the 32-bit version of Windows, which will only recognise 3.25GB of RAM.

SDRAM, DDR2 and DDR RAM memory upgrades from Crucial.com

 

[koolkat77]

Before you splash out on more RAM, download and run the Crucial memory scanner, which will show the best memory configuration for your computer.

Anything more than 4GB is total overkill as you have the 32-bit version of Windows, which will only recognise 3.25GB of RAM.

SDRAM, DDR2 and DDR RAM memory upgrades from Crucial.com

downloaded
should i post back what results i get?

 

[seavixen32]

You can do, then we can advise the best course of action, although Crucial should suggest it anyway.

 

[koolkat77]

here

 

[NoelDP]

Anything more than 4GB is total overkill as you have the 32-bit version of Windows, which will only recognise 3.25GB of RAM.

Not strictly true - Windows 32-bit uses all 4GB, but the top 750MB or so may be reserved for hardware mapping. It's therefore not normally available to the OS.

koolkat should also have the 64-bit disk handy (as a self-build, they *should* haved bought a Retail pack which includes bot 32 and 64 bit disks), so the only restriction on RAM is the motherboard.

Checking that, it looks like it's limited to 4GB anyhow

 

[seavixen32]

Go for the extra 2GB at £13.19, which will give you 4GB in total.

And in anticipation of your next question: http://www.technibble.com/how-to-install-laptop-ram/

 

[koolkat77]

Anything more than 4GB is total overkill as you have the 32-bit version of Windows, which will only recognise 3.25GB of RAM.

Not strictly true - Windows 32-bit uses all 4GB, but the top 750MB or so may be reserved for hardware mapping. It's therefore not normally available to the OS.

koolkat should also have the 64-bit disk handy (as a self-build, they *should* haved bought a Retail pack which includes bot 32 and 64 bit disks), so the only restriction on RAM is the motherboard.

Checking that, it looks like it's limited to 4GB anyhow

hmm, so i should purchase 1 gb then ?