Boot Win 7 Paritition copied to Empty space after Win XP on old HDD?

crashnbuen · 05 Jul 2015

Boot Win 7 Paritition copied to Empty space after Win XP on old HDD?

I plan to upgrade my main OS from Win 7 SP1 x64 to 8 to 8.1. But to take the risk out of it...

I copied my main Win 7 Partition from my SSD to Empty space on old HDD after Win XP partition. (at night.. so I dont have to wait around for 200+ GB going over)

SSD 240 GB: [System Reserved: 200 MB] [SSD_P1 240GB]
HDD 320GB: [Win XP 33GB] [SSD_P1 Copy 240GB ][Free Space][OEM Recovery partition]

I copied this using Paragon HDM 12 Pro

I did not copy the [System Reserved] partition as I wasnt sure how it would fit in.. and since its 200 MB, should be easier to "move" / "copy" if needed.

Now, I read that there is a way to make Win 7 bootable without the SysRrv 200 MB partition.

Or do I need to copy the 200 M partition? Is there a way to make the Win 7 boot while letting the rest of the MBR & booters (Win XP and OEM Recovery) continue working?

What way should I follow? What steps should I take?

PPS: Once this experiment is successful, I'd like to upgrade my SSD with Win 8.. But I am wondering if I should keep the 200 M partn around or merge it.. It just creates additional 'partition's to worry about.
What are the pros & cons of that?

ignatzatsonic · 05 Jul 2015

In a typical system, System Reserved contains your boot manager and is required for a functioning system.

You should have included it along with C.

You also should have included the OEM recovery partition if you have any interest in using that partition to restore to a factory state.

The simplest thing for you to do would be to run Paragon again and include System Reserved and possibly the OEM recovery partition.

As it is now, if you restore C alone, the PC probably won't boot.

System Reserved isn't required, as you found out. You could put the boot files on C instead, copying them to C with EasyBCD.

But the time to do that was before you used Paragon, not after.

If you really don't want System Reserved for some reason, you could use EasyBCD to copy the boot files to C and then run Paragon again, making a new image file that would contain your boot files. If you wanted to do that, you'd need to confirm that the PC will boot properly without System Reserved before making the Paragon image. You'd actually delete System Reserved after you copied the boot files to C and before using Paragon.

There's no big advantage to not using System Reserved. I don't use it myself, but it's mostly a personal choice.

gregrocker · 05 Jul 2015

Use the cloning or imaging function of Paragon, not the copy function which is intended to copy only data partitions.

If your Paragon Hard disk manager doesn't include those functions, then I'd use Macrium Imaging - Windows 7 Help Forums which is free and much preferred here.

If you did this and want to start the present Win7 clone, unplug all other hard drives, Mark C Partition Active
then run Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times until it starts and wears the System Active flags in Disk Mgmt.

crashnbuen · 06 Jul 2015

Thanks :) for the insights.

I took a chance and followed the 1 time "Startup Repair Boot" with Win 7 Rescue CD (.ISO loader). I thought maybe I will have to do the 3 times repair (so read that too before I started).

Got fixed in one Single Boot.

I havent tried booting into Win XP as yet but it shows up as an option on the Boot Menu.. Although I was a bit concerned about OEM recovery partition, worse case scenario.. I'll let it go.

gregrocker · 06 Jul 2015

Let us see a screenshot of Disk Management - Post a Screen Capture Image

crashnbuen · 07 Jul 2015

Its working. But, I found an interesting "thing" or a bug or how it works.

A bunch installed programs now show "install date" as the day of Windows 8/8.1 Upgrade. I like to be able to see what was installed when and now and then remove stuff.

I am not sure whether Win 7 > Win 8 did it or next > Win 8.1

I think it might have been Win 8.1 doing a "reinstall" programs/ applications (if I saw that happening late night on the screen).

Thoughts? Is this something that's by design?

Also, is there any easy way to "pre-choose" some of the options that come on Win 8 & 8.1 Update Screens (ahead of time) instead of being there to click them all. (yeah im familiar with Unattended installs).. I'd like to do that but without having to pick and click each option when I run this late night.

crashnbuen · 09 Jul 2015

gregrocker said:

Let us see a screenshot of Disk Management - Post a Screen Capture Image

Screenshot by Lightshot

gregrocker · 09 Jul 2015

If you will click on the screenshot tutorial it shows how we want the Disk Mgmt screenshot presented. That's why I provided the blue link. We need to see every drive.