Can I delete the system reserved partition from 100MB

That is a problem with these public forums ... anyone can login and post anything. This statement:

Contrary to belief it DOES NOT HOLD THE BOOT OPTIONS FOR WINDOWS 7

is false, misleading and otherwise inaccurate.The 100MB (200MB in Vista and 7 Beta) "System Reserved" partition does indeed hold the boot code for Windows OS. On a computer with only one OS, Windows 7 for example, the Windows Installer creates the "System Reserved" partition (it must be a primary partition), does NOT give it a drive letter (which makes it "hidden") and marks it "Active". Vista and 7 use "bootmgr" to manage Windows boot issues including providing a boot menu to boot to multiple operating systems. "The preverbial NTDLR" is the boot manager for 2000 and XP, and is not included in Vista or 7. To see the contents of the "System Reserved" partition, temporarily give it a drive letter and allow "system files" to be displayed. You will see a "Boot" folder, the "bootmgr" system file, and a BOOTSEC.BAK backup file. Those are your boot files that control the boot options in Vista and 7.

 

It holds the RECOVERY OPTION files should windows 7 fail at any time

I have no idea what you mean by "RECOVERY OPTION". The "System Reserved" partition contains the same utilities available on the Vista and 7 Install DVDs and the "System Repair" CD.

http://www.sevenforums.com/performance-maintenance/51100-repair-cd-system-repair-disk.html

this little partition be it 100 mb's or 200 mb's can be a bit of a pain in the ____ 'cos' it is assigned a drive letter that win 7 see's

which to the mind's eye would screw up disk configurations as,, when you F8 for boot options

(assuming you have more than one drive in your computer) the drive could/will appear without you noticing it

and if you tried to boot to the hard drive you THOUGHT the op/sys was on,,,,,,, you will get the preverbial NTLDR MISSING message.

think you have screwed up.......... and re-install again

The "System Reserved" partition provides several advantages if left alone and used. It increases the security of your system. It provides a boot manager and boot menu for multiple OSs. If you remove it, you are limited to the 4 primary partitions, if you use it for booting, you can install all of your OSs in Logical Volumes on an Extended Partition, as many as 20 partitions.

If you want to dual boot as i do......for my benefit with customers computers,,,,load xp/Vista first then add win7 on an extended partition or another drive,

the boot manager created by Win7 will take care of the rest, usual black screen with the boot manager options.

In other op/sys's the drive is partitioned, is not assigned a drive letter, hidden, and unreadable by the user and as already mentioned IS a recovery partition.

In some instances you may find the recovery files in C:\recovery in the root on other systems.

I removed the files ,,relocated them in the root (just in case of a failure) re-directed the recovery option to see them and used Partition magic to remove the Partition.

Apart from the fact that it has a drive letter assigned to it i see little point in removing it,, these days drive space isnt an issue.

The alternative option is to format the hard drive (NTFS) BEFORE you install win7 on it.. Win7 won't format a drive that has a usable NTFS partition on it

if you tell it not to,

In any event if you don't want to lose your system,,files,,and settings do a FULL BACKUP of your files first, then incrementally every day

Then do a full IMAGE of the the drive/s once a week then the most you could lose is 1 days worth of info.

I know backing up is a pain in the butt ,,,,,,,,,something most of us think we will do tomorrow don't put it off,, DO IT today you may not have the option tomorrow

It's so much easier than having to install the op/sys's wasting hours and hours of re-installs of your programmes

Don't forget to register Windows 7 with microsoft  'AFTER' you have installed everything you think you will need (drivers, programmes, updates.) then do an image to DVD or removable hard drive (you can stop the automatic registration when on line option at the first install screen) that way you aren't wasting your three registration try's on screwed installs before you have to use the 0800 number to register by phone

Still by all acounts we won't have long to wait for Windows 8,,,,,,,,will we...lol

 

Now if you choose to have multiple Operating Systems and multiple hard drives without doing your homework or research and do not understand how all of that is going to react, then you are bound to have problems. For example, when installing XP to a hard drive where there is a "System Reserved" partition, the XP Installer will sometimes assign the "System Reserved" partition a drive letter because it is a "Primary" partition and does not know any better!

Vista and 7 will install the boot code in the first Primary Partition it finds ... if XP happens to be installed there, then that is where the boot code will be put. If you don't want it there, then you must plan for that. I have successfully installed XP on a hard drive with 7 already there and installed 7 on a hard drive with XP already there. It is easier to use separate hard drives. When you have multiple hard drives, unplug all drives except the drive you are installing to.

Another example: I found it to be easier, when adding XP to a hard drive with 7 and the "System Reserved" partition, to create the NTFS partition for XP and mark it "Active" before installing XP. (be sure to allow the Installer to format for XP during the install because there seems to be some subtle differences between NTFS for XP and 7) The XP installer totally ignores everything else except XP on the hard drive, and when done it is an easy procedure to manually add a menu entry for XP to the bootmgr using BCDEDIT. In the mean time, simply changing the "Active" partition between 7 and XP allows me to boot to the OS of choice.

If you do not want the advantages of the "System Reserved" partition then, as has been mentioned repeatedly in this thread, create the Primary Partition before installing Vista or 7 and the installer will put the boot code there (as long as it is the only hard drive connected) and NOT create the "System Reserved" partition. But then what are you going to use for a boot manager? Grub? LILO?

Most importantly, when posting information on a site like this, we should never only rely on our own experience but supply links from appropriate authorities (like Microsoft) in support of our statements. Here is a link to more info on Disk Partitions:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd799232%28WS.10%29.aspx

Cheers!

Robert

Contrary to belief it DOES NOT HOLD THE BOOT OPTIONS FOR WINDOWS 7

It holds the RECOVERY OPTION files should windows 7 fail at any time

this little partition be it 100 mb's or 200 mb's can be a bit of a pain in the ____ 'cos' it is assigned a drive letter that win 7 see's

which to the mind's eye would screw up disk configurations as,, when you F8 for boot options

(assuming you have more than one drive in your computer) the drive could/will appear without you noticing it

and if you tried to boot to the hard drive you THOUGHT the op/sys was on,,,,,,, you will get the preverbial NTLDR MISSING message.

think you have screwed up.......... and re-install again

If you want to dual boot as i do......for my benefit with customers computers,,,,load xp/Vista first then add win7 on an extended partition or another drive,

the boot manager created by Win7 will take care of the rest, usual black screen with the boot manager options.

In other op/sys's the drive is partitioned, is not assigned a drive letter, hidden, and unreadable by the user and as already mentioned IS a recovery partition.

In some instances you may find the recovery files in C:\recovery in the root on other systems.

I removed the files ,,relocated them in the root (just in case of a failure) re-directed the recovery option to see them and used Partition magic to remove the Partition.

Apart from the fact that it has a drive letter assigned to it i see little point in removing it,, these days drive space isnt an issue.

The alternative option is to format the hard drive (NTFS) BEFORE you install win7 on it.. Win7 won't format a drive that has a usable NTFS partition on it

if you tell it not to,

In any event if you don't want to lose your system,,files,,and settings do a FULL BACKUP of your files first, then incrementally every day

Then do a full IMAGE of the the drive/s once a week then the most you could lose is 1 days worth of info.

I know backing up is a pain in the butt ,,,,,,,,,something most of us think we will do tomorrow don't put it off,, DO IT today you may not have the option tomorrow

It's so much easier than having to install the op/sys's wasting hours and hours of re-installs of your programmes

Don't forget to register Windows 7 with microsoft  'AFTER' you have installed everything you think you will need (drivers, programmes, updates.) then do an image to DVD or removable hard drive (you can stop the automatic registration when on line option at the first install screen) that way you aren't wasting your three registration try's on screwed installs before you have to use the 0800 number to register by phone

Still by all acounts we won't have long to wait for Windows 8,,,,,,,,will we...lol

It holds the boot info for Windows 7. Remove it and you will NOT have Windows 7 anymore.

Leave it well alone..

<CR>

Mike Hall MVP Windows: Consumers http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/

Mike Hall MVP - Windows Desktop Experience http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/