Deleted System Partition - Stable, Unstable?

Sperado · 24 Aug 2013

Hi, guys. This is my first post. I'm getting ready to encrypt my hard disk with DiskCryptor. Before I do, I want to make sure my system is stable. I removed the 100MB Windows 7 System Reserved Partition, following the directions in the two tutorials below ...

System Reserved Partition - Delete
Startup Repair

I had no problems. Everything went as expected. The final result was that I had 100MB of unallocated space, and since you can't extend (expand?) the system partition to the left, I used Partition Wizard Home Edition, Free, to do so. Again, everything went as expected.

I had a few "quirky" things happen, so I rebooted off a bootable USB drive I had and ran Startup Repair three times. Each time I was told “Startup Repair cannot repair this computer automatically.” Here’s what was reported under Problem Details ... Please note what was reported in Problem Signature 07.

Problem Signature
Problem Event Name: StartupRepairOffline
Problem Signature 01: 6.1.7600.16385
Problem Signature 02: 6.1.7600.16385
Problem Signature 03: unknown
Problem Signature 04: 4
Problem Signature 05: ExternalMedia
Problem Signature 06: 1
Problem Signature 07: CorruptPartitionTable
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1033.

Partition Wizard Tech Support told me to do a Partition Wizard "Check File System." Basically, Check File System reports the results of my last CHKDSK. Below are a few things I made note of that don't look right ...

"The Master File Table's (MFT) BITMAP attribute is incorrect.
The Volume Bitmap is incorrect.
Windows found problems with the file system.
Run CHKDSK with the /f (fix) option to correct these."

I ran CHKDSK /f at least three different times, but I'm not able to fix the reported problems . I have not been able to fix the problems in Startup Repair or the problems reported by CHKDSK /f. Does anyone have any advice?

Worst case scenario, I do have an Acronis system image done a few days prior to deleting the 100MB Windows 7 System Reserved Partition. I also have a Windows 7 boot USB and an Acronis Boot CD with True Image.

My system is fully operational. I am able to use all programs. i am not getting error messages. I am able to connect to the internet. There aren't any problems that I can tell, but I do not want to proceed with encrypting my hard disk unless I know everything is rock solid.

Ideas, recommendations, thoughts?

TVeblen · 25 Aug 2013

Here is what I would do if it were me:
(This is a lot of work, and be sure you know how you are going to do all the steps before starting the project)

I would make an image of the current C drive.
If needed, create a bootable CD or USB stick of the Imaging program that can be run from outside of the OS.
Then - booting from a W7 installation disk or repair disk, use DISKPART ( DISKPART : At PC Startup ) to delete the C: partition, creating unallocated space ( Partition or Volume - Delete - option 2).
If ALL of the data on the hard drive was backed up, I would go one step further and wipe the entire drive using DISKPART - Clean All command. (This clears all file tables). Disk - Clean and Clean All with Diskpart Command
Then using DISKPART - I would create a new C: drive and format it NTFS ( Partition or Volume - Create New ), make it Active ( Partition - Mark as Active - method 2 ).
Then, booting from the Imaging program CD, I would restore my C: image onto the new C: drive.

This should repair any funky drive geometry errors that may be the cause of your error messages.
You could then be confident that there are no issues before encryption.

Sperado · 26 Aug 2013

Boy, this is great!!! Thank you for the detailed steps (and the links to more info).

I don't care if it's a lot of work. I want a stable system. I'll report back when I've got it fixed.