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How do I create the "system reserved" partition for use by Bitlocker?
Hi guys. First post here so take it easy on me, haha.
I installed Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit edition on my new Lenovo laptop. I captured an image of my machine and deployed the image to several others. Now, we want to start using Bitlocker. However, there is no "system reserved" partition, you know, the 100MB one that Windows automatically creates during install. Turns out that Bitlocker NEEDS this partition.
I can manually create this partition, but I don't think it's useable by Bitlocker. Regardless, I tested this. I created the partition (200mb after shrinking primary partition), rebooted, and ran the manage-bde -status command. There is another drive listed but it's unusable.
Here is the output of that command:
FYI, I have 3 disks in my machine:Code:Disk volumes that can be protected with BitLocker Drive Encryption: Volume D: [500GB] [Data Volume] Size: 465.76 GB BitLocker Version: None Conversion Status: Fully Decrypted Percentage Encrypted: 0% Encryption Method: None Protection Status: Protection Off Lock Status: Unlocked Identification Field: None Automatic Unlock: Disabled Key Protectors: None Found Volume . [] [Data Volume] Size: Unknown GB BitLocker Version: None Conversion Status: Fully Decrypted Percentage Encrypted: 0% Encryption Method: None Protection Status: Protection Off Lock Status: Unlocked Identification Field: None Automatic Unlock: Disabled Key Protectors: None Found Volume . [] [Data Volume] Size: Unknown GB BitLocker Version: None Conversion Status: Fully Decrypted Percentage Encrypted: 0% Encryption Method: None Protection Status: Protection Off Lock Status: Unlocked Identification Field: None Automatic Unlock: Disabled Key Protectors: None Found
Disk 0 = Samsung 840 EVO SSD in my Ultrabay, two partitions: 200mb system reserved & rest of space C:
Disk 1 = Whatever brand 500GB 7.2k RPM drive in main drive bay, one partition, drive D:
Disk 2 = Sandisk x110 SSD mSATA 256GB under the keyboard in mSATA slot, several partitions, Windows 8, no drive letters while booted into Win7 on disk 0.
I checked out the system reserved partition on another PC. It has a standard ID07 when viewing partition details in DISKPART. I was thinking it had a special ID to be marked as "system" or whatever, but I guess not. I do know that this partition is usually the first one created, so it starts at block 0 or whatever, but that shouldn't matter.
So now my predicament is that I don't want to have to reimage all of these machines.
Does Bitlocker truly require this other partition (I'm thinking YES), and if so, how can I create it manually and get it to actually work?
I am going to go check out the BCD fix from DriveImageXML. I remember it changing your BCD around to boot differently, so maybe I can make my manually created partition active and then run the BCD fix on it to make it bootable. I really have no idea and am not finding ANYTHING on the web about this. The only thing I keep finding over and over is how to create the partition manually BEFORE installing Windows, not after.
Thanks!