System reserved on a cloned HDD. Do I need it and how do I get it?

[danielhlfrd]

My original hard drive is failing. This computer is the first one I built and I dropped the hard drive while trying to install it. It has always made clicking noises and had some problems, but I'm cheap so I ignored them. Now the original install won't start and this time startup repair cannot fix the problem. At first it said Problem Signature 07: Bad Patch, now is says Problem Signature 07: Bad Driver.

I have a second hard drive. It has a variety of files, programming assignments, and other stuff on it, but a lot of unused space. Original drive is 1TB, this one is 2TB with 350GB of data on it.

I installed windows onto a small partition on the new drive as a recovery option to get access to my computer again.

I then created a new partition, big enough to hold all my data and cloned the original drive's primary partition to that space.

After this I ran fixboot and fixmbr to give me access to this drive. I am currently typing this while on the clone.

The system reserved partition is on the original drive. It still has the system tag, but basically every other tag is on the partition I've booted in to.

Imgur: The most awesome images on the Internet

That is what my drives currently look like. Do I need to have the system reserve partition on disk 0 before removing disk 1? How do I do this if it is necessary? If it's optional, what will the difference be with/without it?

Note:
I'm not looking to reinstall windows unless it is my absolute last option. I have a ton of data and programs with custom settings that will take ages to get back together, which I don't really have time for.

 

[DavidE]

You don't really need a System Reserved partition on Disk 0,
but you do need to have the Bootmgr on Disk 0 or Windows will not boot up if Disk 1 is disconnected.

Here is a tutorial by whs for how to move the Bootmgr using EasyBCD:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/209885-bootmgr-move-c-easybcd.html

 

[danielhlfrd]

Thanks for the quick reply!

I may already have that, but I'm not sure. Initially when I tried to boot to the cloned drive it said bootmgr not found. When I ran fixboot and fixmbr it booted up fine. Is there a way to check whether or not it is there already?

 

[DavidE]

When the PC is booting up you should be able to press a key that brings up a "One Time boot device option" menu.
The key is different for different motherboards/PCs, so you need to find what key gives you this option for your PC.
Usually the BIOS shows what this key is when booting with something like "Boot Selection menu", but it can go by really fast.

If you can get to that "One-Time boot menu", you can select the new drive and see if it boots up.
Or, go into BIOS, and change the first boot device to the new HD.
Or, disconnect Disk 1 and see if Windows boots up.

Sorry for the lengthy (confusing) post, but these are the options i know of.

 

[danielhlfrd]

I mean I'm already on the cloned drive. When I initially tried to boot to it from the one time boot menu in BIOS it said bootmgr is missing. After doing fixboot and fixmbr it booted up fine.

This drive has the boot tag when I go to disk management. The only tag it doesn't have is system.

I can't tell if system is the thing actually making it start or otherwise.

I also don't know if the recovery installation of windows would cause problems if I don't have that on there.

 

[DavidE]

If is the Active / System partition, you should be ok. Post a new screen print of your Disk Management using these instructions: [URL]http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/274797-disk-management-post-screen-capture-image.html[/URL]

 

[danielhlfrd]

All right that should be it.

 

[DavidE]

System Reserved on Disk 1 is still the System partition, so i think you still have a boot problem without Disk 1.

I would disconnect Disk 1 and try a Startup Repair:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/681-startup-repair.html

 

[danielhlfrd]

Will the fact that I have a second windows installation on this drive be a problem?

And could I use the easyBCD you mentioned earlier?

 

[DavidE]

I don't know with your setup
I'll post a screen print of my triple boot Test Box, with 3 OS's on a single SSD.

Win 8.1 has the bootmgr (System/Active partiton)
I'm running W10 right now (Boot partition).

I only use Primary partitions for the bootmgr partition, or a GPT initialized drive so it can access more than 2 TB in a single partition.
I use Logical partitions for everything else, even the partition(s) that Windows is installed on.

 

[AddRAM]

You still have to write the System files to C on Disk 0, if you want Disk 0 to boot on it`s own.

If you`re happy with how it is, then you don`t have to do anything.

 

[heroleo]

1. Run Windows Command Prompt (cmd.exe) as Administrator, then run the command below to write the system files to C: on disk 0
bcdboot C:\Windows /s C:
2. Reboot the PC, change BIOS to boot from the disk 0

More infomation about bcdboot: BCDboot Command-Line Options