Vista Home Premium to Win 7 Pro In Place Upgrade

What you are gaining by creating a System Reserved partition is having the Repair console normally only on the DVD/Repair CD placed on the F8 Advanced Boot Options menu. We report, you decide.

If you create one before install as suggested by BarefootKid then I would mark it Active to make sure installer writes SysReserved to it.

If not, you can do all of this with Disk Mgmt and installer. Shrink Win7 down to around 100gb, create Data partition, move data over to it. Partition or Volume - Shrink
Partition or Volume - Create New

Then just format and install to C from booted installer: Clean Install Windows 7

Bare Foot Kid said:

Hello mate, you can have your cake and eat it too.


Create a "data" partition at the end of the Vista partition and move all the data to that.

During the Windows 7 installation process, delete the Vista partition and use the Windows 7 installer to create the System Reserved partition and a second partition to install Windows 7 to.

Create the SysResv in the first position at 200MB and it will automatically be created as a SysResv and I would suggest you only create a 100GB partition to install Windows 7 to; you can always extend the Windows partition to include the remaining unallocated space on the HDD / SSD or create additional Primary partitions or an Extended partition after the installation completes if you choose.

The Windows 7 installer will do all you need to create both partitions for the installation; though if you are comfortable using the command line, have a look at Step Two #3 of this tutorial for the complete process, do not use either the clean or the clean all first as that will over-write (destroy) all data on the entire HDD.

So if I do the following:

1) Create data partition on Vista, move data there.

2) When installing Win 7 I format it over Drive C (Vista partition) and create another 200MB (or 100MB?) partition called SysResv. How exactly do I put the SysResv partition in the "first position"?

3) When Windows 7 is installed, I shrink Drive C (Win 7 partition) and extend my data portion (with my data already on it). This will not erase any data correct?

As for backing up my data I have it on another HDD and important files are burned to DVDs.

gregrocker said:

If you create one before install as suggested by BarefootKid then I would mark it Active to make sure installer writes SysReserved to it.

How do I mark it Active? Is this done during the Windows 7 installation? And the 100MB (or 200MB) parition is the one that I mark Active and therefore becomes the SysReserved partition?

1) Yes.

2) Windows 7 will take care of that as it will update the existing boot record during installation.

3) After you shrink your C drive you cannot use Disk Management to extend your D drive to unallocated space to the LEFT of the partition. You need to create a third-party boot disc that you boot into to edit your partition sizes. A good freebie is MiniTool's Partition Wizard.

Free Partition Magic alternative. Free Partition Manager Software for Windows 7/VISTA/XP/2000 and Windows Server 2003/2008/2000.

Alternatively, you could just create another partition in the unallocated space that is left after you shrink your C drive and use it as an extra data partition.

Providing you do nothing to your data partition during the install, the data on it will remain intact.

If ever you need to mark a partition as Active it can be done from within Windows 7's Disk Management by right-clicking the partition in question and choosing Mark As Active.

However, if the system reserved partition is already marked as Active as it should be, do not mark any other partition on the same drive as Active also as this will cause problems when Windows boots up.

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Bare Foot Kid said:

gregrocker said:

If you create one before install as suggested by BarefootKid then I would mark it Active to make sure installer writes SysReserved to it.

How do I mark it Active? Is this done during the Windows 7 installation? And the 100MB (or 200MB) parition is the one that I mark Active and therefore becomes the SysReserved partition?

You have decided to create a System Reserved partition during install?

If so it's best to use a Partition Manager CD like the one seavixen linked above. Boot it to delete all but the Data partition you've created in Disk Mgmt containing your data. Then Create a New 200mb partition NTFS Primary with no letter, Modify>Set to Primary. Next Create your OS partition in the remaining space, NTFS Primary, letter C.

If you want to use the installer during install, use Custom>Drive Options to delete all but Data Partition, create 200mb SysReserved partition, then OS partition, Format both. Then abort install, boot back into installer, press Shift + F10 at first screen to open Command Prompt, use these Diskpart commands to mark 200mb SysReserved Active: Partition - Mark as Active (Method Two), then close Command Box, continue with install.

Are you saying you were able to get the installer to create System Reserved in Unallocated Space when a data partition remains?

If so SeaVixen was correct. I was quoting the rule that you won't get SysReserved on a prepartitioned HD. It would be nice to know how many other exceptions there are to this rule.

Bare Foot Kid said:

I just had a go at this, first I created the System Reserved and a partition for install but the installer create a second SysResv, so I had 2 of them the 200MB I created and the 100MB the installer created and the install partition.

So I created only a single partition for the install and the installer still created the SysResv and it is marked "System" have a look.

click to enlarge

And this is in the Windows 7 installer? Once this is done, I will have the unallocated space. Can I merge it with my data partition? Or will doing this format/erase my data partition?

If that is the case must I boot into a 3rd party program, such as the one seavixen32 linked to to extend my data partition over the the unallocated space?


Here is my exact situation:

I currently have 1TB (930GB or so usable) on my HDD with a single partition (Drive C). I will make a new partition (Drive D) that is 300GB or so and place my data on it.

When installing Windows 7, I will install it onto Drive C. I will set the size for 100GB or so. Windows 7 will also make a 100MB SystemRes partition automatically. This means I will have roughly 530GB in an unallocated partition.

Can I merge this 530GB partition with the 300GB Drive D/data partition in Windows 7's Disk Management area? Or is this task done in a program such as Free Partition Management?

If I am still misunderstanding something let me know. :)


And I have another question. Currently I only have a .iso for Windows 7. This means I will have to start the installation via booting from the DVD drive. Can I still set my partitions (choose to format Drive C, shrink it, and leave Drive D alone) and whatnot just as I can from using a .exe installation from within Windows?