Removing System Reserved Partition from HDD, and recreating on SSD?

[RayzTheRoof]

I dun goofed when I installed my SSD a year ago. I had my HDD's plugged in, so they got system reserved partitions while my SSD did not. You can see this here:

http://i.imgur.com/Ajou4ur.png

I recall at the time not being able to boot from my SSD because some startup file was missing, as it was on the HDD's I guess. I did startup repair and was able to boot, so for a year I have been thinking everything was fine. But I have noticed that the boot time is much slower than it used to be, so I have been looking stuff up and found out all the above issues about the system reserved nonsense.

My question: How can I remove the system reserved partitions from my HDD's (just delete them from disk management?) and how can I get it on my SSD? And most importantly, is removing those partitions and putting them on the SSD even the correct thing to do as I have been led to believe?

Thanks!

 

[gregrocker]

The third drive is booting itself as signified by the System flag. Unplug the other drives to confirm this.

If there are still OS' on the hard drives then post back screenshots of each one booted so we can see if they are independently bootable too, or just try booting each while plugged in alone.

Are you booting your choice via the BIOS Boot Menu or a Windows boot menu?

 

[RayzTheRoof]

I forgot to add: My SSD can boot on its own. I tried the steps people recommended here: http://www.sevenforums.com/installation-setup/182428-re-moving-system-reserved-ssd-hd-system.html

However, when I disconnected my HDD's and ran startup repair on my SSD, it told me there was nothing to repair. My SSD can boot on its own, probably because of when I did startup repair a year ago, but it still has no system reserved partition. No idea how to create that now.

And I am booting via the BIOS. I have my SSD as priority 1, with my HDD's not even available to be listed in the BIOS. I can manually select the HDD's or a USB to boot from (though I don't think the HDD's will boot to anything) but the Boot order menu will only listen my SSD.

Neither HDD has an OS on them either. Just storage.

 

[gregrocker]

In that case mark the useless System Reserved partitions (which are always optional) Inactive then delete them in Disk Mgmt so they don't accidentally get reactivated. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/197157-partition-mark-inactive.html

Then move the Win7 paging file off the slow hard drive by turning it off, reboot then turn it back on upon C only. Virtual Memory Paging File - Change

If possible swap Disk0 cable to the SSD if it is the fastest port, because otherwise there's always a risk of a preceding Primary partition stealing the System flag during Repairs or Reinstall.

 

[RayzTheRoof]

Isn't it recommended with SSD's to just keep the page file on a HDD?

 

[RayzTheRoof]

Also how do you mark the partitions inactive before deletion? Thanks.

 

[whs]

Isn't it recommended with SSD's to just keep the page file on a HDD?

Nah, nobody should recommend that because it is a useless exercise. What you should do is reduce the pagefile size to 2GB if you have 4GB or more RAM.

For inactivating a partition you right click on it in Disk Management.

 

[RayzTheRoof]

No option to inactivate, just to delete. Is it fine to just delete it without inactivation?

 

[gregrocker]

Did you not see the tutorial in my first paragraph that clearly says Partition - Mark as Inactive?

There is no option for this in Disk Mgmt.

Unless you have a space crunch on your SSD, leave the page file System Managed.

Why would anyone recommend moving a paging file that is meant to help speed up things from a fast SSD to the slower HD?

 

[RayzTheRoof]

Sorry, I legitimately have no idea how I didn't spot that.

 

[gregrocker]

Let us know how it goes, and if there is anything else.

 

[RayzTheRoof]

I'll try everything tomorrow when I'm not sleepy

And I've always seen people recommend not using a page file if you have a lot of memory, so I just moved it to the HDD and made it small. Not sure about the veracity of that statement, but I'm no expert on it and could be 100% wrong.

 

[gregrocker]

Again if you are not desperate for space there is no reason to change it from System Managed to second guess another perfect Win7 feature.

As an example of what utter nonsense it is to put the paging file on a HD instead of the SSD, they make hybrid hard drives that use a tiny SSD chip for only the paging file because it benefits the most from the speed!

 

[RayzTheRoof]

I think my rationale at the time was thinking that it would write more to the SSD. And even though I know SSD's last a while, my crippling OCD told me to not risk it. Not sure how the page file works even so I could be making stuff up. Anyways, inactivated and deleted those partitions. I guess it wasn't causing any real issues though since by boot times are still ridiculous.

Edit: And thanks for all your help. Is there anything I can do about the 100MB of unallocated space on each HDD? Not that it matters, it's only 200MB of lost space, whatever will I do!

But really, thanks for helping and being awesome. And your dog's cute.

 

[gregrocker]

Thanks.

I would not waste any time on the 200mb. But if you want to move space arond we have a very cool tool here Partition Wizard that will extend any partition to/from any unused space on a hard drive even if it's not adjacent. How to extend partition easily with Partition Wizard - video help.