Solved System Reserved Partition Disappeared

[Elias K]

Hi,

I decided to replace one of my 1TB (WD Black Label) drives (2 drives, 2 partitions on each HD, the system drive did not need replacement) since it became really slow and purchased a Seagate 1TB Barracuda drive (all Sata III).

After the swap my computer stopped booting and BIOS didn't even see the original WD drive anymore.

I installed Windows 7 (same installation disk as the original installation) on the new Seagate HD and copied all the information from the slow drive. After that I replaced the logic board on the non-working HD with the one from the slow one (same model) and it started working again.

However, now I can't boot from this HD anymore ("Boot from CD/DVD" prompt).

Windows disk management sees both original partitions (both listed as primary) on that HD, but does not see the system reserved partition.

I would really benefit from having my original Windows installation restored (have a lot of paid software for which I don't have keys anymore).

What has happened to my boot and system reserved partitions and what are my options here?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Golden]

It sounds like the System Reserved partition was located on the 1TB WD Black you removed - this placement of the System Reserved partition is a common issue during installation, which is why its always best to only have one single HDD connected during the installation operation.

Re-insert the 1TB WD Black and reboot the computer - if it boots as expected, then please run this so we can examine the partition layouts and determine a course of action:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/274797-disk-management-post-screen-capture-image.html

 

[Elias K]

The other disk only contains 2 partitions and that's it.

 

[Golden]

?

What other disk are you referring to? Can you boot your computer at the moment, or not?

 

[Elias K]

I'll switch the WD drives (I can only have 1 active at the time because of the failed logic board) to double-check my previous statement.

Here's the layout of the currently working WD (F: is the former system partition) and Seagate (Disk 0 and Disk 1 respectively).

The Unallocated space on Drive 0 was created manually by me in order to re-create System Reserved space.

 

[Elias K]

I have 3 disks at my disposal:

New Seagate disk. I installed W7 on it and this is the one I booted up from.

2 1TB WD disks. One of them is where the original W7 installation was. It is currently powered up and working. That's the disk I want to boot up from.

The other WD disk (which I replaced with the Seagate disk) is not functional ATM. I have to switch the working logic board to make it work. I am pretty confident that it only has 2 data partitions and no System Reserved partition. However, I can verify that if you want me to (I am a little bit reluctant to replace hardware pieces without need, but that can be done if that's what you want me to).

 

[Golden]

Please post screen capture image of Disk Management screen as per tutorial linked earlier

OK, see you did that.

 

[Golden]

The easiest method may be to unplug DISK1, then boot from an installation DVD and run this:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/105541-startup-repair-run-3-separate-times.html?ltr=S

 

[Elias K]

Thank you for the advice. Which partition should I make active, the F: or the currently unallocated one? There is about 80GB of free space left on F.

Also, can I make the partition active without rebooting (while Disk 1 is still attached)?

 

[Elias K]

Thank you for the solution.

 

[Golden]