Solved 100 MB Boot Partition went to wrong drive help required please

[steve-pressman]

Hi guys it has been a while since I have been here due to some ill health, that aside I do need some urgent help.

My SSD failed and since I use my other 2 spinners as data storage with an external drive I thought I would use and old 250GB spinner that I had laying around to install windows on until my SSD gets replaced under warranty.

Installation no problem but now I see that one of my spinners the Seagate 1TB has become the 100MB drive. The problem being that it has loads of stuff on there that I really want and need.

So the question is can I get rid of the 100MB partition and then revert my spinner back to the way it was? I have not written anything to it at all as I want to preserve it as much as possible.

Is this possible and how and will my system still boot up without the 100MB partition ?

Hope somebody can help me urgently many thanks in advance

Steve

 

[Dave Atkin]

Hi Steve,

Was the SSD Drive the drive with the OS on? Do you have a backup of the drive?

Can you give us a screen shot of disk manager?


Dave

 

[theog]

Can you post a screen shot of Disk management?
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Screenshot tools.
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Use Snipping Tool to capture screen shots

 

[gregrocker]

This is why only the target HD should be plugged in during install.

Unplug the others, move the Win7 HD into Disk0 to prevent future problems, set it first HD to boot in BIOS setup after DVD drive.

Boot the Win7 DVD or Repair CD to Mark the Win7 partition Active: Partition - Mark as Active (Method Two)

Now close Command Box, select Repair My Computer, accept any offered Repair. When Win7 doesn't start, boot back into Repair Console to run Startup Repair 3 Separate Times to write System boot files to the Active Partition, until Win7 starts on its own.

Now you can plug back in the other HD's, use Diskpart Delete Partition Override Command to delete 100mb partition.

 

[whs]

Steve, I would not worry. I run one system with that same configuration since 2 Years (could not disconnect one of the drives during the installation). And I was too lazy to fix it later. As long as you do not reformat the big drive, nothing bad will happen.

For future installations do as Greg says - disconnect all drives except the one on which you install. The Win7 installer does this act all the time - grabs the first drive in sight for the 100MB partition. That's why it is good to wire the OS drive to Port0.

 

[steve-pressman]

Many thanks guys I have fixed it now just needed to assign a drive letter in the disk management and I have it back again, but your input as always most valuable reminds me not to cut corners out of frustration in future.

Steve

 

[gregrocker]

Hi Steve -

How did assigning a drive letter solve the 100mb System Reserved partition being on another HD from the Win7 partition it boots?

If you'll post the requested Disk Mgmt screenshot we can check it over for you to make sure it's correct now.

 

[steve-pressman]

My Bad Greg it wasn't on another Disk I was just so tired when I was doing it I just didn't look correctly, big mistake. Here is the screen shot now though anyway.


Steve

 

[gregrocker]

Open an Elevated Command Prompt and use Diskpart to mark E Inactive: Partition - Mark as Active (Method Two). You can also use free Partition Wizard to do this.

Power down the computer, swap the E drive's cable to Win7 HD, leave E unplugged while you boot into DVD or Repair CD to run Startup Repair 3 Separate Times to write the System boot files to System Reserved partition until Win7 starts on its own.

Make sure Win7 HD remains set first to boot in BIOS setup, after CD/DVD drive.

You can then plug back in E to the DIsk1 cable. As long as it remains Inactive and no Active partitions exist before the Win7 partition, Repairs will not derail the System boot files.

 

[theog]

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/197157-partition-mark-inactive.html