OS automatically installs boot record on separate partition

[perrinjw]

Several months ago, I bought a Dell Inspiron 1545 Notebook. Overall I am very satisfied, and the only issues I ever have are usually my own fault, hehe. One thing which I do not understand, though, is why whenever I install my operating system it installs the bootloader on a separate partition from the operating system.

So far, I have installed two operating systems on this laptop: Windows 7 Home Premium, 64-bit, and Ubuntu 10.04 LHS, 64-bit. Both operating systems required me to install the bootloader on a separate partition. It is only about 100MB partition that it creates, and I kind of like having it separate, but it does cause a few issues. For one, my computer permanently fails whenever it goes into hibernation, because the active partition is only the bootloader, 100mb (not enough space). I currently have hibernation disabled.

My laptop has a RAID driver, if that is related. I was just wondering if there is any way to correct this quirky setting?

 

[Pusspa]

the way to not have the extra partition is to format the hard drive before you install win7 instead of during the install. i have read you lose the system repair option when you do this and need to use the win7 dvd.

 

[perrinjw]

Oh, okay. That would be kind of tricky, since I would have to format the entire hdd at once, within the active OS. I'll have to find a tool that can partition an active hard drive after rebooting.

 

[Night Hawk]

Not fully! When having a problem starting up for some reason the option for the startup repair will present itself even when the 100mb boot partition isn't present.

I saw that on the last build here when GParted was used to prepartition and format the drive before the clean install of the retail 7 when first out and had a slight oops! while working on a custom set up. The hard boot at the time saw this option appear.

On the new build the MS drive tools were used this time around to see the 100mb boot/BCD store system reserved partition and the F8 boot option for the startup repair along with the "Last configuration known to work" option appears only if Windows has a problem. At any other time the startup repair option isn't seen in the F8 menu.

Note instead of only having the 7 dvd out you can use the option in the Backup & Restore section in the Control Panel to burn a cd-r with the repair tools only. If you have any problems you simply boot with the cd rather then the extra handling of the original 7 dvd.

 

[eldinv]

the way to not have the extra partition is to format the hard drive before you install win7 instead of during the install. i have read you lose the system repair option when you do this and need to use the win7 dvd.

I think that only works if you create the partition in diskpart using the command window.

SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation - Windows 7 Forums

 

[Night Hawk]

the way to not have the extra partition is to format the hard drive before you install win7 instead of during the install. i have read you lose the system repair option when you do this and need to use the win7 dvd.

I think that only works if you create the partition in diskpart using the command window.

SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation - Windows 7 Forums

You could nuke the 100mb and resize the C primary by moving it forward first followed by the need to rebuild the BCD store and boot sector at the command prompt option while booted from the 7 dvd or repair cd. The Fixmbr and Fix boot commands are entered afterwards to insure all is set.

If you don't have anything on quite yet a fast clean install once the drive has been reparitioned and formatted also solves everything for the extra effort while the command line option for rebuilding works faster then DiskPart.

bcdedit /export C:\BCD_Backup
c:
cd boot
attrib bcd -s -h -r
ren c:\boot\bcd bcd.old
bootrec /RebuildBcd

Refer to How to use the Bootrec.exe tool in the Windows Recovery Environment to troubleshoot and repair startup issues in Windows