Visible Windows 7 System Reserved Drive

[Howard08560]

I recently installed Windows 7 on two PCs. The first PC had two 500GB drives and I did a clean install of Home Premium. There was a previous Vista installation on the C drive but during the install process I reformatted both drives. Everything went as expected.

The second PC had two 1TB drives and I also did a clean install but these were brand new drives with no prior OS on them. This time I used Windows 7 Professional. the installation went fine but there was an unusual result. The two 1TB drives showed up as Drive C and E. Drive D is visible and is System Reserved and uses 71.8 of 99.9MB.

I seem to recall that Windows 7 reserves this space, but why does it show up as a separate drive on one machine but not on the other? Is this a function of Professional vs. Home Premium? Is it a function of the install process I used?

Is there any way to hide the drive and delete its drive letter?

BTW, Drive F is my DVD.

Thanks!

 

[Howard08560]

I forgot to add that the Windows 7 Professional installation was 64 bit and the Home Premium was 32 bit.

 

[Minotar]

I recently installed Windows 7 on two PCs. The first PC had two 500GB drives and I did a clean install of Home Premium. There was a previous Vista installation on the C drive but during the install process I reformatted both drives. Everything went as expected.

The second PC had two 1TB drives and I also did a clean install but these were brand new drives with no prior OS on them. This time I used Windows 7 Professional. the installation went fine but there was an unusual result. The two 1TB drives showed up as Drive C and E. Drive D is visible and is System Reserved and uses 71.8 of 99.9MB.

I seem to recall that Windows 7 reserves this space, but why does it show up as a separate drive on one machine but not on the other? Is this a function of Professional vs. Home Premium? Is it a function of the install process I used?

Is there any way to hide the drive and delete its drive letter?

BTW, Drive F is my DVD.

Thanks!

Professional and ultimate have bitlocker encryption,thats the extra 100mb.

Go to control panel>admin tools>computer management>disc management>right click the 100mb>change drive letter>delete the drive letter from the window.

If you do this you cannot run files from here,i.e
bitlocker.

 

[Howard08560]

I knew about the 100mb reserved space, but is it supposed to be a visible or hidden drive?

 

[Minotar]

I knew about the 100mb reserved space, but is it supposed to be a visible or hidden drive?

It should be hidden yes.

 

[Howard08560]

Any idea why mine is visible and how I can hide it and reclaim my drive letter?

My boot drive is Disk 0 and Drive C is on that disk.

The reserved partition is Drive D on Disk 1, and it shares space with Drive E on Disk 1.

 

[gregrocker]

Can you post back a screenshot of your full Disk Management drive map, using SNipping tool in Start Menu and attaching file using paper clip in reply box?

This sounds unusual. We only assign 100mb a letter if it isn't recognized in a dual boot. Splitting it between HD's also could be problematic if that's indeed the case.

I just checked my 100mb and it has a letter, but I added it for some other reason I can't remember now.

Incidentally, that 100mb also conveniently puts your Repair console available by tapping F8 at bootup. Nevertheless, it can be removed if you want and recovered into the Win7 partition.

 

[Howard08560]

Here are screenshots of my disk map and Windows Explorer

 

[gregrocker]

How very strange and annoying, if only because it makes the two drives interdependent for no good reason.

Did installer offer the 100mb on DISK1, then you formatted DISK0 for install?

I'm not sure about copying the 100mb onto DISK0 using Partition WIzard CD after making space at the first of that HD. You'd still have to recover the MBR back into it after copying, so might as well just delete it and recover the MBR into C if you are of that mind.

The 100mb Sys Reserved partition is for Bitlocker Encryption in Ultimate and conveniently puts the Repair console available by tapping F8 at bootup. You decide if that's enough reason to keep it.

 

[Howard08560]

These were both brand new Seagate 1TB drives prior to install. During the installation process I booted from the W7 CD and proceeded to install from there.

During the disk selection phase of the installation process it is likely that I requested both drives to be formatted and then to have W7 installed on Disk 0. Is it possible that if Disk 1 was formatted first that the Reserved System Drive would be placed there instead of on Disk 0 with the OS? Would that also account for it being visible since it is not on the same drive as the OS?

 

[gregrocker]

Installer would prompt to let you know it is giving you the 100mb partition then place it on the highlighted drive which you had selected.

A screenshot with the warning prompt is included in this (older, when it was 200mb) tutorial on how to avoid 100mb: How to Avoid 200MB Hidden System Partition From Been Created During Windows 7 Installation My Digital Life

After installer placed it on DISK1, you must have selected DISK0 for your installation.

 

[Howard08560]

If that is what I did, would that have resulted in it being assigned a separate drive letter and being visible in Widows Explorer?

 

[gregrocker]

Possibly, but I can't say for sure.

It is no problem either way execept that you can't remove either drive.

So if you want to be able to do that, MBR can be recovered into Win7 partition after deleting 100mb.

Or if you want to keep Bitlocker or Repair Console available at F8, then we can move it up onto other HD and repair its MBR.

 

[SIW2]

See what happens when you make Disk 1 the first HD in bios boot order.

You can remove the drive letter if you like. Why do you want to?

Open an elevated command , type : (press enter after each line)

Diskpart

sel vol d

remove

exi

 

[AlanJS]

Installer would prompt to let you know it is giving you the 100mb partition then place it on the highlighted drive which you had selected.

A screenshot with the warning prompt is included in this (older, when it was 200mb) tutorial on how to avoid 100mb: How to Avoid 200MB Hidden System Partition From Been Created During Windows 7 Installation My Digital Life

After installer placed it on DISK1, you must have selected DISK0 for your installation.

Link is broken now. Here is the old version, which was originally linked to:

How to Avoid 200MB Hidden System Partition From Been Created During Windows 7 Installation » My Digital Life

These steps are to avoid making it in the first place. I would doubt that a full reinstall would be worth getting rid of the erroneous partition, but it could be a reasonable practice to implement when doing new Windows 7 installs.

Some Windows 7 installs of mine have the System Reserved partition, and some others don't. That's the most confusing part to me.

 

[gregrocker]

Since this thread was Active we've dealt many times with Win7 Installation or Startup Repair placing the System boot files on the first Primary partition in order even on another drive or elsewhere that's not desired.

To avoid this we recommend unplugging all other driver during install or repair, or swapping the cables so the OS drive is always in DISK0 to avoid this.

Another option is to make all data partitions preceding the OS System partition Logical which cannot receive boot files. Partition / Extended : Logical Drives - Windows 7 Forums

Although it would be best to first see a screenshot of Disk Management - Post a Screen Capture Image to advise you better, the easiest way to move the System boot files to the Win7 Primary partition is to Mark Partition Active and then run Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times with all other drives unplugged.

There has not been another automated method to do this completely until recently when EasyBCD added restoring the F8 System Recovery Options link to its utility that moves Bootmgr - Move to C:\ with EasyBCD - Windows 7 Forums. Be sure the target partition is marked Active first and all other drives unplugged.

 

[AddRAM]

Make an install partition to install windows on, unplug all other drives, no system reserved partition is made, simple as that.