Advanced Boot Options

Bill2 · 26 Jul 2011

Brink said:

Hello Raveous, and welcome to Seven Forums.

This option is only available if you have the 100 MB System Reserved partition created during the installation of Windows 7, or if you have a OEM factory recovery partition instead of a retail Windows 7 installation disc.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Hey Shawn, just want to point out a few observations in this regard, I hope you're fine with this post (I'm a bit scared after that "Bad advice" thread, lol).

Now, I have 3 categories of computers:

1) Those with a Sysres partition about 2 gb in size- here, the recovery files (winre.wim + boot.sdi) are physically contained within sysres.

2) Those with sysres about 200 mb in size- here the recovery files are actually contained in the System partition (C:\Recovery\<GUID>). Deleting sysres has no impact on the F8-repair your computer option.

3) Those without any sysres whatsoever- these are like 2) above.

So it would seem as long as the recovery fies are present (at least in the 2 locations described above), the Repair your computer option works fine.

Brink · 26 Jul 2011

Hello Bill,

Don't be concerned at all about the "Bad advice" thread. This is isn't the same thing at all. Besides, we are all here to learn, and we'll never know everything. Myself included. :)

Are these with a OEM recovery or some other manually created partition?

I only get the 100 MB System Reserved partition by default when installing a retail Windows 7 on a unallocated drive.

Bill2 · 26 Jul 2011

Thanks Shawn. Only one of these computers have an OEM recovery partition, rest do not.

2 of the computers are new and each has a oem created sysres (one a desktop with a 2gb sysres and another a notebook with a 199 mb sysres).

You're right sysres gets created only if you install windows on an unallocated drive, I prefer clean installs without the sysres- reason being I dont use dual boots and access to recovery options still works via F8.

Brink · 26 Jul 2011

I see. Thank you Bill. Tutorial updated. :)

Bill2 · 26 Jul 2011

Thankyou Shawn.

gregrocker · 26 Jul 2011

What will be missing on F8 Advanced Boot Options if you clean install to unallocated HD and avoid the 100mb System Reserved partition is the Repair My Computer console, which is placed there by the SysRes partition even though contained on the OS partition.

Bill2 · 26 Jul 2011

gregrocker said:

What will be missing on F8 Advanced Boot Options if you clean install to unallocated HD and avoid the 100mb System Reserved partition is the Repair My Computer console, which is placed there by the SysRes partition even though contained on the OS partition.

Contradictory to my experience Greg. As I mentioned, many of my machines have clean installs without sysres and all have the F8-Repair your computer link.

gregrocker · 26 Jul 2011

This is news to me. Could it be a SP1 change?

In hundreds of cases I've never seen WinRe appear on F8 without SysReserved even in factory OEM - which might also bundle it with Recovery files.

We even did research after release on why the 100mb places Repair Console on F8 if it isn't large enough to contain WinRE and as I remember SIW2 explained that it was hotlinked to WinRE within the 7 installation.

Maybe Ted can test it as I never clean install without 100mb.

Bill2 · 26 Jul 2011

gregrocker said:

This is new to me. Could it be a SP1 change?

IDK. I've been messing around with RE and no matter what I do, the Repair my comp option is fine and dandy. Important point is as long as the RE files are there (whether in sysres or in C:\recovery<guid>), the option works fine. Of course, if you have the RE files sitting in sysres (thats true for some computers that have a large enough sysres ~2gb) and you remove sysres, you'll get an error with that F8 option.

Bill2 · 27 Jul 2011

Messing around (contd.)...

I have a Dell with oem win7, when purchased it had a sysres (about 200 mb) and a hidden Dell utility partition that contained the Dell factory image, windows recovery environment file (winre.wim) AND boot files. So deleting the utility partition would mean- inability to restore to factory image, inability to invoke RE from the hard disk and inability to boot the machine.

So I copied the boot files over to C: drive with bcdboot, then deleted both utility and sysres partitions. Result- system bootable but no F8/Repair your computer option and of course no dell factory restore.

Today I copied over winre.wim and boot.sdi files (together these constitute the recovery environment) from another computer (instead of copying, one can do it in WAIK on the same machine) to the dell's C: drive, then ran the setautofailover script (part of WAIK) that configures bcd to add the recovery lines.

Now I have a functioning F8/Repair your computer link.

PS: Just wanted to share. Admins, please feel free to delete/move this post if it appears off topic.