Captmcnet

[Captmcnet]

Two installations of Win 7 Pro on two different PC's showing different results.
1st 1 TB drive, with an Intel DP55WB mobo, with an Intel I7 860 CPU.
2nd 1 TB drive, with a Gigabyte EP45UD3R mobo, with an Intel Core 2 Q9550 CPU.

The 2nd machine shows a normal Disk 0 C: NTFS drive partition as: System, Boot,
Page File, Active, Primary Partition.

The 1st machine shows a Disk 0 with a 100 MB (no drive letter, System Reserved),
partition as: System, Active, Primary Partition; and then the remainder of Disk 0
C: NTFS drive partition as: Boot, Page File, Primary Partition.
The 1st machine also shows three startup entries which are not in the startup of
the 2nd machine. They are; Shell (explorer.exe),
Userinit (windows\system32\userinit.exe, and
VmApplet (SystemPropertiesPerformance.exe /pagefile).

Is the 100 MB System Reserved partition necessary (if so, Why?), and if not,
should I use Partitioning software to re-claim the 100 MB for the C: partition?
And how do I make the C: partition show as "System" as well as Boot, etc.?

Suggestions appreciated.
Tks

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hello Captmcnet, welcome to Seven Forums!

I would suggest you study the need for the "System, Reserved" partition for your-self and then if you choose to remove it, that process is out-lined in Step Two of this tutorial at the link below; be sure to post back with any further questions you may have and to keep us informed.

Partition Wizard : Use the Bootable CD




The info below explains the "System, Reserved" partition and more info can be vied at this tutorial at the link below.

Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times

   Information

There is another situation that is common now, when Windows 7 is installed to an un-partitioned or "unallocated space" on a Hard Disk Drive (HDD) it creates one partition (the first) labeled "System Reserved" that becomes the "system volume" and a second partition that Windows 7 installs to, both "Primary" partitions; the "System Reserved" partition is where the boot files are created and has a link to the recovery options console built into Windows 7, it serves a very useful purpose but there may be times when removing or repairing the "System Reserved" partition becomes necessary.

 

[Night Hawk]

Hello Captmcnet Welcome to the Seven Forums!

To answer your question on the 100mb reserved partition seen that is placed onto a raw drive by the 7 installer itself when using the installer's own drive tools. When using using a 3rd party drive partitioning and already created and formatted a new primary 7 will install right onto that without any need for the separate 100mb system reserved.

The two images artacked show not only the typical install with the 100mb present but how it looks when mounted as a normal logical drive provided a drive letter. What you see there is the BCD store placed on a separate partition from C.

For simply avoiding that entirely you would simply use a 3rd party program like the free Partition Wizard Bare Froot Kid linked or even the free Linux drive tool GParted. When the beta and RC buids were first installed here there was no 100mb since the drives used had been in use for the previous versions. New drives for a new build then saw the 7 installer place it there.

If you elect to remove it from either system moving the C primary forward to expand that after the move first be sure to back everything up in case of a mishap often seen with the partition table itself. If anything happens to that the drive can be turned into a raw drive where the primary is turned into unallocated drive space. Just a forewarning for you ahead of time.

The alternative method for seeing the drive made bootable if all goes well can be performed while booted live with a 7 recovery disk which you will need. You may have to create one if none were provided or use the option to burn a repair cd found in the Control Panel>Backup & Restore section there. A one time boot to the Repair Tools>command prompt option while booting live from a repair cd or recovery disk(recommended to have) allows you to use the Bootrec.exe tool in what MS labels as the Windows Recovery Environment. How to use the Bootrec.exe tool in the Windows Recovery Environment to troubleshoot and repair startup issues in Windows

For reclaiming that 100mb of drive space there are two recommendations regardless of which method is used to rebuild the BCD store. 1)Back everything up 2)If a 3rd party drive partitioning program is used the live cd method generally sees working results over mishaps with the installed to drive type programs especially since the OS primary is involved.