Can I delete the system reserved partition from 100MB

"Your solution is simple and can all be done from Windows 7. First create a simple volume in the unallocated space at the front of the drive. Make it exactly 100MB, give it a drive letter, mark it as "Active", and format it as NTFS."

First thing I did was to create a System Restore point. 

Using Win7 Disk Management.  I created Simple Volume.  Could not make it 100MB.  Max permitted was 99MB.  Did that. Gave it drive letter Z and it was automatically named a Logical Drive.  No right click option to make it Active.  Went ahead and formatted NTSF anyway.  (Still no option to make Active.)  Assigned new drive letter to System Reserved (S:).   Somewhere along the way, drive D on Disk 0 became Active. 

"Now copy all the files from the old "System Reserved" to the new "System Reserved". " 

Win7 gave me a lot of flak on this but it seems I was able to do this.  I now have Recycle.BIN, BootMgr, Boot, BootSec.bak, SystemVolumeInformation, and System Reserved (folder) in former Allocated space. The System Reserved folder seems to hold duplicates of the other files and folders mentioned in last sentence, except not System Volume Information**.**

"When the copy is done, go back and remove the drive letter from the "Active" "System Reserved" partition and reboot."

Did that.  It did not change the ability to change the former Allocated Space to Active.

At this point I was concerned that I had really messed things up.  I used System Restore.  I was relieved that the PC rebooted . T(he System Restore was declared to be successful and there was only a brief black border to the Desktop before icons were displayed).  The old System Reserved partition had returned to being Active.  D: was no longer Active.  The drive letter change to the former Allocated space had remained.  There was still no option to make the old Allocated space Active or to remove the Active designation from the ("old" System Reserved partition. Only C: and D: now have the right click option to Make Active.  I did not do that.  No partition has the option to Extend Volume--only Shrink Volume.

I attach a screenshot of the present situation.

http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/2354/diskmanagement423.jpg

Should I just live with the present situation?

Repair Install - http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3413-repair-install.html - allows one to reinstall Windows 7 to repair some files and settings. It can only be started from a working Windows 7, so it is limited. If you cannot boot to Windows 7, you will not be able to use this.

"Startup (booting to your Windows to start it up) Repair" is just one of the "System Recovery Tools" available to Windows 7 users. If you have a working 100MB boot partition, these tools are available to use from the boot partition. The same tools are also available by booting to the DVD or the CD that Windows 7 will create and burn for you.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/668-system-recovery-options.html

Repair CD - System Repair Disk Windows Seven Forums

For this question:  "Referring to the present Allocated space, you say "Make it exactly 100MB". It is now 101MB. Any reason not to use all 101MB?" Yes, there is a very good reason not to use all 101 MBs. The Windows 7 installer knows exactly where it needs to start the partition, not necessarily at the absolute beginning of the hard drive. If you were to use a partition utility like GParted, you would see the unused spaces at the beginning and end of the Windows partitions. Some users have trashed their installations by insisting on overruling Windows and trying to use these small empty spaces.

So create a new volume and set the size to exactly 100MB. When you are creating the 100MB partition, YOU can type System Reserved in the line that says LABLE to name the partition.

Windows only allows ONE ACTIVE PARTITION PER HARDDRIVE. When you mark a partition active, the previously active partition becomes inactive. So unless your system is trashed, you will not have two active partitions on the hard drive.

What is it you are going to mess up? You are creating a simple volume of 100MB in size, you are going to assign drive letters, you are going to copy files from one to the other, you are going to mark the newly created 100MB partition as "Active" and give it no drive letter, and boot. If the computer does not boot to Windows, you are going to boot to the DVD and Windows will most likely repair its self. If not, you can select "Startup Repair" from the menu and do it yourself. If you are that uncomfortable with the steps outlined here, perhaps you should have a computer tech do it for you?

"Startup Repair" and "Repair Install" are two totally different operations.

Cheers!

Robert

DonnieR--Many thanks for your comments.  I am glad to hear that the System Reserved partiton was created when I partitioned the external USB drive.  I thought my memory was failing, but it seemed illogical that what I did on that drive would affect Disc 0.