New win 7 install and New hard drive help?

I recently had a drive fail and had to format and reinstall win 7 x64. I thought i installed it on a different drive, a 320GB drive. Although when i go into Administrative Tools-etc- Disk management, my "system reserved" allocation is on my 750GB, but my "C:" drive, which does not have a "system reserved" is the 320GB HDD.

I wanted to format the entire 750 and check and/or correct for errors but i can't delete the "system reserved" part. Now i realize i shouldn't delete it because i'll have to reinstall again.

I need to take out the 750 and ship it back to the manufacturer in order to get a replacement.

The worst part is that i didn't realize this until i got all of my programs installed, almost 50 different programs.

How do i get the "system reserve" over to my 320 drive without ruining my OS?

Can you please post a screenshot from DISKMGMT, showing all your drives and partitions.

Start -> Run -> DISKMGMT.MSC

Maximize the window, spread the horizontal column dividers on the top so that all text in all columns is readable. Be sure all your drives also show in the lower part of the maximized window.

Then take a screenhsot and post it here, so we can give you the correct advice for your situation.


Using a [free] program like Partition Wizard Home Edition v5.2 you might be able to literally COPY that "system reserved" partition from the 750GB drive over to the 320GB drive. You would also set the copied partition on the 320GB drive as "active" (also with Partition wizard). Then you would re-boot and go into the BIOS of the machine and set the 320GB drive as "hard disk #1", so that at boot time it goes to the "active" partition (i.e. the "system reserved" partition you just copied and made "active") on that 320GB drive.

Of course, the "system reserved" partition when it was on the 750GB drive had the boot manager files in it for when things looked the way they used to. They're different now, so simply copying it to another drive may or may not work (I've never done this, but it sounds plausible to me... though I'm only cautiously optimistic).

You might also look into another product named EasyBCD which is really a Win7 boot manager replacement, but works within the same "system reserved" partition constraints as Win7's boot manager itself.

NOTE: Partition Wizard also provides an ISO for you to download, that you can then burn onto a CD. This is the standalone boot CD version of PW, which is just like the installed program that runs under Win7 except that it runs standalone and thus can manipulate the C-partition immediately, which is something the Win7 version of the program cannot do while Win7 is actually running, until the OS is rebooted at which time the requested PW function is now completed and then the rest of the normal Win7 boot process is completed.


Anyway, I'm just thinking out loud here.

Once we see a DISKMGMT screenshot of your setup the options will be clearer.

dbacs said:

I recently had a drive fail and had to format and reinstall win 7 x64. I thought i installed it on a different drive, a 320GB drive. Although when i go into Administrative Tools-etc- Disk management, my "system reserved" allocation is on my 750GB, but my "C:" drive, which does not have a "system reserved" is the 320GB HDD.

I'm a little confused here... do you have two copies of Win7 installed and available, through a Boot Manager menu that is presented to you at boot time?

Or do you only have one copy of Win7 installed, on the 320GB drive, but you also have the "system reserved" partition still on the 750GB drive, along with the originally installed and now obsolete and not-used Win7 in a large partition on that 750GB drive which used to be C?

I'm sure that at the moment, your 750GB drive is shown as "hard disk #1" in your BIOS setup, which is why the "system reserved" partition got built there when Win7 was first installed onto that 750GB drive. The "system reserved" partition contains the boot manager files for Win7 (even in a 1-OS environment), and is marked as the "active" partition on the drive. That's how the booting process proceeds... BIOS -> ACTIVE partition on hard disk #1, i.e. "system reserved" where boot manager files live -> C partition on that drive, in a 1-OS world.

If you had changed your BIOS settings to show the 320GB drive as "hard disk #1" before you reinstalled Win7 to it, then the Win7 reinstall would have created a new "system reserved" partition" on that 320GB drive, marked it "active", and installed Win7 into a second large C partition on that drive. The 750GB drive would have been totally ignored.

Sounds like you didn't change the BIOS to point to the 320GB drive as "hard disk #1", and that's why you ended up the way you currently see things. You've got the 750GB drive as "hard disk #1", and the "system reserved" partition on it as "active". The new Win7 install is now on a single large partition over on the 320GB drive (and the old Win7 partition on the 750GB drive is just obsolete). So the BIOS boots to "system reserved" which is "active" on the 750GB drive (hard disk #1), and then checking the boot manager files really boots from over on the C-partition on the 320GB drive where your one reinstalled Win7 now lives. The old Win7 on the 750GB drive C-partition is simply not pointed to by the boot manager menu any longer (I'm guessing), because you still have a 1-OS world (although odd, because "system reserved" is on 750GB and Win7 is on 320GB).


It may actually be possible to just COPY that "system reserved" partition from 750GB over to some unallocated space on the 320GB drive using Partition Wizard, and then mark it as "active", and change the BIOS to point to 320GB drive as "hard disk #1", and have it all work. You may need to use Partition Wizard to shrink the Win7 partition on the 320GB drive (either just a little, or maybe a lot and create a D partition on the drive as well, along with leaving unallocated space for the "system reserved" partition you're going to copy over from the 750GB drive).

All of this should be done with the STANDALONE BOOT CD version of Partition Wizard I mentioned above, as you're fooling around with all of the basic system partitions. But the more I talk about it, the more reasonable and do-able it sounds.

That's a bit complicated for a beginner to read , let alone understand - those of us who hang around forums forget what is was like.

I do.

Dbacs,

If you post disk management screenshot - there willl likely be a quick and simple solution.

how-post-screenshot



@dsp - we just had a recurrence of PW bug if you are interested.


Toshiba Laptop will not boot into Win 7

Attached is the Disk Manager screen capture. I kept it a large resolution so you could see the text.

I only have one Win 7x64 installed. Yes you're right, i did not set the 320GB to HDD 1 in the BIOS before installing. I tried changing the boot order after the OS installed, but just like you explained, that didn't help.

Thank you for the ideas, that is some nifty thinking. Do you think that method would cause any irreparable problems? I'm kind of looking for a bullet proof method.

Here you go:



Put bootsect.exe in windows system32.

Rt click on the 100 mb partition and give it a letter e.g. S

Rt click your win7 partition and Activate

Then rt click and run as admin on nt6bootrepair.

In Select partition to inactivate dropdown, select S and click Set Inactive.

Under Auto Boot Repair Select Active partition , select C

Under Auto Boot Repair Select Windows partition, also select C

Click Apply.

Restart pc.

You're done.



edit - you had to be quick....

What program is that in the screen shot? Did i miss something?

thanks.

You got it already - you're welcome.

Another method since others reading this will not have access to the tool privately given to OP:

Mark Win7 partition Active in Win7 DIsk Mgmt, or if it won't allow this use free Partition Wizard bootable CD, or DIskpart from DVD or Repair CD command line: Partition - Mark as Active

Power down, Unplug the 100mb System Reserved partition HD or swap its cable to Win7 HD, set Win7 HD as first to boot in BIOS setup.

Now boot the Win7 DVD Repair console or Repair CD to run Startup Repair up to 3 separate times with reboots to write the System Boot Files to Win7.

Now you can plug back in the other HD and delete Sys Reserved partition, if necessary using Diskpart Delete Partition Override command on it. DISKPART At PC Startup