Removing system partition in win 7

[FD]

Here is my little experience on how to remove system partition after
installation.

I would boot with Acronis Disk Director CD

Make Boot partition (C) as active.

Boot with win 7 oem cd

Run repair..

After the SECOND repair boot folder will be created in C:
and bootmgr file will appear in root.

I would then use Acronis Disk Director to delete the system partition
and resize C: to take up small empty space.

FD

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, FD.

There's a BIG difference between the "system partition" and the "system
reserved partition"!

True, the System Reserved partition does function as the System Partition on
many computers, especially those sold with Win7 pre-installed. And your
method probably will remove the small System Reserved partition. Whether it
is worth doing is another question.

But the computer cannot even start Windows without a System Partition
holding the primitive instructions that tell it (a) which operating system
to boot and (b) where to find the startup instructions for that OS.

That's what your "repair..." step does: It creates those startup
instructions in Drive C: to replace the code that was in the now-removed
System Reserved partition. In other words, it reverts to the pre-Win7
configuration, which by default, had the first partition (typically Drive
C serve as both the System Partition and Win7's Boot Volume (which is
where the \Windows folder tree resides). All this effort doesn't really
save much disk space; 100 MB is not much in today's world. All it really
does is use space INSIDE Drive C:, rather than outside it in that special
partition.

For the definitions of System Partition and Boot Volume - they are backwards
from most users' understandings - please see KB314470, Definitions for
system volume and boot volume. While written for Win7, it also applies to
Vista and Win7.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP (2002-2010)
Windows Live Mail 2011 (Build 15.4.3538.0513) in Win7 Ultimate x64 SP1


"FD" wrote in message
Here is my little experience on how to remove system partition after
installation.

I would boot with Acronis Disk Director CD

Make Boot partition (C) as active.

Boot with win 7 oem cd

Run repair..

After the SECOND repair boot folder will be created in C:
and bootmgr file will appear in root.

I would then use Acronis Disk Director to delete the system partition
and resize C: to take up small empty space.

FD

 

[Ed Cryer]

Here is my little experience on how to remove system partition after
installation.

I would boot with Acronis Disk Director CD

Make Boot partition (C) as active.

Boot with win 7 oem cd

Run repair..

After the SECOND repair boot folder will be created in C:
and bootmgr file will appear in root.

I would then use Acronis Disk Director to delete the system partition
and resize C: to take up small empty space.

FD

This seems very academic to me but I'l try my hand.
Why not do this?
1. Boot with a Linux live CD and delete the partition in question.
2. Boot with Win7 repair function.

Ed

 

[Wolf K]

Hi, FD.

There's a BIG difference between the "system partition" and the "system
reserved partition"!

[snip explamation]


.... which is why you can have a Windows boot volume anywhere at all, if
you really want to. Mine is on Disk 1, as XP is on Disk 0, in the system
partition.

However, which partition is labelled C: depends on which OS I boot.
Under XP, Disk 0/Partition 1 is C;, and Disk 1/Partition 1 is E: Under
Win 7, Disk 1/Partition1 is C:, and Disk 0/Partition 1 is D:.

HTH
Wolf K.

 

[Stan Brown]

Here is my little experience on how to remove system partition after
installation.

I would boot with Acronis Disk Director CD

Make Boot partition (C) as active.

Boot with win 7 oem cd

Run repair..

After the SECOND repair boot folder will be created in C:
and bootmgr file will appear in root.

I would then use Acronis Disk Director to delete the system partition
and resize C: to take up small empty space.

Who on earth would you want to do such a thing? The system partition
takes only a tiny fraction of a modern hard disk.

 

[Stan Brown]

Who on earth would you want to do such a thing? The system partition
takes only a tiny fraction of a modern hard disk.

And it will prevent you from encrypting any drives with BitLocker.
If you have a laptop, you really want to encrypt your drives, or at
least the one that holds data you don't want criminals to have if
your laptop is stolen.

 

[FD]

Who on earth would you want to do such a thing? The system partition
takes only a tiny fraction of a modern hard disk.

I use Acronis true image and encourage my family to use it also to make
images regularly..

I recently replaced my hard disk with an SSD drive.

I image the C drive and use the image to restore to the new SSD.

I forgot about the system partition when restoring to the new SSD and my
computer would not boot.

It was only later that I realised about the system partition.

I am not in the computer field by profession.

FD

 

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

Who on earth would you want to do such a thing? The system
partition
takes only a tiny fraction of a modern hard disk.

In my case, it has nothing to do with the disk space consumed, but
rather the partition structure. Our software requires a specific
partition structure for certain recovery functions, and rather than
re-write that well-tested and useful part of the software to
accommodate the pre- and post- Windows 7 partitioning, we prefer to do
without the system Reserved partition. Since the only thing it
provides is bitlocker functionality, it serves no useful purpose for
us.

It also uses up one of the 4 allowed primary partitions, which for
some could be an issue.

 

[Stan Brown]

I use Acronis true image and encourage my family to use it also to make
images regularly..

I recently replaced my hard disk with an SSD drive.

I image the C drive and use the image to restore to the new SSD.

I forgot about the system partition when restoring to the new SSD and my
computer would not boot.

It was only later that I realised about the system partition.

Except for the SSD drive (my hard drive failed, so mine was an
unplanned replacement), that is the story I shared here in late
October. I would not want anyone else to go through that.

 

[Dave \Crash\ Dummy]

Hi, FD.

There's a BIG difference between the "system partition" and the
"system reserved partition"!

True, the System Reserved partition does function as the System
Partition on many computers, especially those sold with Win7
pre-installed. And your method probably will remove the small System
Reserved partition. Whether it is worth doing is another question.

But the computer cannot even start Windows without a System Partition
holding the primitive instructions that tell it (a) which operating
system to boot and (b) where to find the startup instructions for
that OS.

That's what your "repair..." step does: It creates those startup
instructions in Drive C: to replace the code that was in the
now-removed System Reserved partition. In other words, it reverts to
the pre-Win7 configuration, which by default, had the first
partition (typically Drive C serve as both the System Partition and
Win7's Boot Volume (which is where the \Windows folder tree resides).
All this effort doesn't really save much disk space; 100 MB is not
much in today's world. All it really does is use space INSIDE Drive
C:, rather than outside it in that special partition.

For the definitions of System Partition and Boot Volume - they are
backwards from most users' understandings - please see KB314470,
Definitions for system volume and boot volume. While written for
Win7, it also applies to Vista and Win7.

The NT system was always intended to be installed in two partitions,
that's why the "System" and "Boot" partitions exist. I've installed mine
that way since NT 3.51. I don't know why that fell out of practice,
probably because it is more work to do the installation.