100 MB Partition for System Recovery?

[Electron]

My Windows 7 computer came with a 100 MB partition that I believe may include a System Recovery capability.

If I boot the Advanced Startup Options using the F8 Key the first item in the list says "Repair Your Computer". However, if I hit Enter I get a screen asking about language but there is no cursor and I can't do anything other than hit reset.

Could this be a keyboard and mouse driver issue? I have a USB keyboard and mouse.

 

[MilesAhead]

I believe if you get a USB to PS2 adapter it may work. Many techs carry a small PS2 keyboard in their toolkit because some BIOSes don't support USB keyboards. The adapter should only be a dollar or two.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

My Windows 7 computer came with a 100 MB partition that I believe may include a System Recovery capability.

Not sure "System Recovery" would be related to a 100 MB partition. Those very small partitions of 100 MB or so are usually a storage spot for boot files.

Did your PC also come with another partition or two other than C, with a size measured in GB, not MB?

 

[mjf]

I think you will find the 100MB is the "System Reserved" (active) partition and basically contains important boot files. F8 directs you to the winre.wim which should live on your OS partition.

 

[Wandering one]

100 mb is boot files. I believe mouse is non functional in the system recovery part. Keyboard only like in BIOS.
Art.

 

[SIW2]

I believe mouse is non functional in the system recovery part

Not sure what you are getting at there, Art.

Winre.wim should have mouse drivers. If it is an oem machine, there might be some specific drivers required.

You can try extracting the drivers from your running operating system, and see if there is anything that looks like oem specific mouse drivers. If so, you can install them permanenetly into winre.

Here: View attachment 322008

 

[gregrocker]

What exactly are you trying to Repair? If you're only wanting to familiarize yourself more with the OS and PC then you can go over it as thoroughly as you want using http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/220165-troubleshooting-steps-windows-7-a.html

 

[mjf]

Re the mouse and keyboard. USB 3 port connections could cause problems. If you are using USB 3 try USB 2.

 

[Electron]

Thanks all for the help. I have an OEM system from a local computer shop and just wanted to understand all the capabilities. The 100 MB partition shows as System Reserved under Windows Disk Management and there is 70 MB free.

Since the Repair Your Computer option shows up under the Advanced Startup Options, I assumed I had the equivalent of the Recovery Console that I formerly used with WinXP. However, I don't know if it is located in the 100 MB partition or on the C: drive.

Keyboard and Mouse are connected through USB 2.0. I just checked the BIOS and USB Legacy Support is enabled. Recently I discovered on a WinXP system with Recovery Console that USB Legacy Support was required for the Recovery Console to work with USB keyboard and mouse.

I did try the tab key, arrow keys, and all function keys and absolutely nothing worked when trying to select English as the language. Looks like my next step is to try a PS2 keyboard and mouse.

 

[AddRAM]

If you install Windows 7 on a clean disk with no existing partitions, it creates a System Reserved partition at the beginning of the disk and uses the remainder of the unallocated space to create your system drive.That small partition isn’t assigned a drive letter, so you won’t even know it exists unless you look in the Disk Management console or use a low-level utility, such as Diskpart, to inspect the disk structure.

This “stub” of a partition, which is new in Windows 7, serves two functions. First, it holds the Boot Manager code and the Boot Configuration Database. Second, it reserves space for the startup files required by the BitLocker Drive Encryption feature. If you ever decide to encrypt your system drive using BitLocker, you won’t have to repartition your system drive to make it possible.

If you’re confident you’ll never use BitLocker and prefer to do without the additional complexity of this System Reserved partition, your best bet is to make sure it’s never created. For a truly clean installation starting from an unformatted hard drive, you must use a different disk-management utility, such as the setup disk available from many hard-disk manufacturers or a startup disk from Windows Vista. Create a single primary partition using all unallocated space, and then point the installer to the newly created partition as the setup location. (Note that you cannot use the graphical disk-management tools available from the Windows 7 DVD to perform this task.) After you use the alternative tool to create a partition on the drive, you can point the Windows 7 installer to that location and it will proceed.

If you’re comfortable with command-line disk management tools, you can use the Diskpart utility from the setup program to create the necessary partition. At the begin¬ning of setup, before you select the location where you want to install Windows:
Press Shift+F10 to open a Command Prompt window
Type diskpart to enter the Diskpart environment
Assuming you have a single clean hard disk, use select disk 0 and create partition primary to manually create a new partition
Proceed with the Windows 7 setup, using this new partition as the setup location

 

[Electron]

Thanks for the additional comments on the System Reserved Partition. I will leave it alone since it is involved with boot. I will also assume that my F8 Key Advanced Startup Options were referencing WinRE.wim somewhere on the C: partition.

It's still not clear why my keyboard and mouse failed to work in the F8 Repair Your Computer option other than the theory on needing different drivers or using PS2 devices.

As an experiment, I just booted my Windows 7 Install Disk. The mouse and cursor worked on quite a few screens until the point where I stopped.

I was hoping to find a Recovery Console to see if my mouse or keyboard worked, but I only found something called Startup Repair. I was afraid to proceed as I did not want any changes made to the system.

If anyone knows anything about Startup Repair or whether it is the Recovery Console, please let us know.

 

[gregrocker]

What exactly are you trying to repair? Keyboard and mouse function in WinRe? Try other keyboards and mice. Try Tab key. Reset BIOS to defaults. Check for BIOS settings for USB and other related.

Startup Repair will check for problems w boot to repair. It won't hurt unless the Active flag has been moved off SysReserved partition

 

[Electron]

What exactly are you trying to repair? Keyboard and mouse function in WinRe? Try other keyboards and mice. Try Tab key. Reset BIOS to defaults. Check for BIOS settings for USB and other related.

I was trying to get the Repair Your Computer capability to work which comes up in the Advanced Startup Options menu. There is no actual problem with the computer.

The first menu asking about language comes up but I have no cursor at all. As you said, it is probably the keyboard and mouse or maybe the drivers. I was hoping to boot a Recovery Console some other way to see if it worked. My Win 7 Install Disk works fine.

Thanks for the help and I'll look into the other things you suggested.

 

[gregrocker]

It's better to repair from the Win7 disk anyway. Does it give you full functionality in the System Recovery Options?

Go ahead and try it to see if Startup Repair finds anything awry.

 

[Electron]

Thanks again for the help.

Last night I tried a PS/2 keyboard and mouse and now the "Repair Your Computer" feature in the F8 Advanced Startup Options works. I also made a Windows 7 Recovery CD from Windows 7 and it also did not work with USB keyboard and mouse. The CD was not tested with the PS/2 devices but I'll assume the same substitution would correct the problem.

The recovery options available with my Windows 7 Install Disk match what is seen in the link you sent. I was not comfortable with actually running that automatic repair feature so did not proceed. My system has been fine now for close to a week.

I intend to ask the local computer shop that built the PC if they have an easy solution to the USB keyboard and mouse problem.

 

[gregrocker]

OK, we'll wait til they ask us then.

 

[Layback Bear]

We need system specs. A couple of tutorials that will help you.

By Brink:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/180324-system-info-see-your-system-specs.html

By Kari:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/311593-speccy-publish-snapshot-your-system-specs.html

 

[SIW2]

I expect so. Just install the drivers for your keyboard and mouse in winre. They seem to work in your installed version of Windows, so they should work in winre.

I intend to ask the local computer shop that built the PC if they have an easy solution to the USB keyboard and mouse problem.

 

[Electron]

Just install the drivers for your keyboard and mouse in winre. They seem to work in your installed version of Windows, so they should work in winre.

How would one install drivers in winre? I would think that the devices and drivers shown in the Windows Device Manager would apply to both winre and Windows.

 

[Electron]

The problem with the Repair Your Computer recovery screen has been resolved. Previously it only worked if I plugged in a PS/2 Keyboard and Mouse. USB would not work.

My Gigabyte AMI EFI BIOS had a USB option that was set to Partial Initial. It was changed to Full Initial which also required that Fast Boot be set. The USB Mouse is now functional.

I just tested this using the Recovery CD that can be made from Windows 7. It should also work in the F8 Advanced Startup Options since the recovery software is the same.

Thanks to all for the help.