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Windows is not installed on the drive from which it boots!?
I have 2 HDD, Disk0 and Disk1.
Disk0 is supposed to have my personal data, Disk1 the OS.
Disk0 has 3 partitions (H:/ I:/ J:/ ) and Disk1 has 3 partitions too (C:/ D:/ E:/ ).
One month ago I installed Win7 but erased my Disk0 by mistake and probably (very unlikely though! see below) started installing on there when I realized something looked wrong, canceled, then formatted Disk1 and installed there, on the first partition (I blame the badly designed Windows installer, Linux does it better).
Fortunately, I recovered my data from Disk0 (only partition tables must have got wiped out) after Win7 finished installing on Disk1 with a recovery tool.
I'm about to format Disk0 now (at least the first partition) but I noticed something weird on my Disk0 (data) hard drive.
I have system files, of which creation dates match the day I installed Win7 (and recovered my partitions too).
Note: disregard found.000, that's a file chkdsk must have created back when I used WinXP or something.
Note2: columns are "Date modified" and "Date Created", YY/MM/DD
I'm new to Win7 but I'm guessing these system files I see here should be on my System drive, not another drive, right?
Here is what I have on my C:/ where Win7 is installed:
Am I missing some (hidden) system files there?
Here is what I have in the Disk Manager:
I am confused. H:/ is marked as "System", which shouldn't be.
I am afraid that formatting H:/ might prevent me from booting anymore.
In such a case, will I have to either:
1) format C:/ and re-install Win7 ?
2) use recovery console and repair from there ?
The second solution would be fine by me since my Win7 installation DVD is on a USB drive (I installed from there).
As a side note, I am super confused as why one drive (SATA) is Disk1 and the other (IDE) is Disk0. I had to fiddle in my BIOS to end up booting on the right one (which I suspect is Disk0!). If I ever had to remove my IDE HDD, would I end up not being able to boot Win7?
Remark: I got suspicious of that when trying to encrypt my system drive with TrueCrypt and TC says it couldn't handle a system that "does not appear to be installed on the drive from which it boots".
---------------- SOLUTION --------------
* I disconnected my IDE cable.
* Reboot then set my USB key as HDD to boot on
* Started windows 7 installation process which immediately found the error and started fixing it, then ask for reboot.
* Second reboot, then second repair which I had to select in the recovery environment menu this time. Error got fixed again.
* Reconnected my IDE HDD.
* Re-set my usual boot configuration in BIOS (first drive being my SATA holding C:/, second drive being my IDE holding H:/ )
* Works fine! Thank you!
Last edited by cavuplo; 30 Nov 2011 at 11:00. Reason: added workaround