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by Ray
(Las Vegas, NV)

I just purchased a New Gateway. I successfully (after much fooling around) managed to shrink the C drive from 900gb to 67gb, since I don't store much on that drive anyways, making system image backups small and fast. I created a New Storage drive using around 500gb of the remaining space.

Then I wanted to create a second bootable partition and found I was limited to a maximum of 4 on that drive. I did not know that, so I looked at the 2 extra ones.

One is 100mb and called SYSTEM RESERVED. The other is Not Named and is 15gb.

The space used is not an issue, the fact they take 2 of 4 available partitions is.

So my question is: If I delete them, will my system boot ok?

I don't need the Recovery Partition, since I have DVD's, and backup using Macrium Reflect Image copies, which can be restored using a Linux Stand Alone bootable DVD.

I have researched this and found conflicting information. I had purchased a disk Doctor program to restore a partition I lost, but that will not run in 64bit mode, so I am hesitant to just start fooling with them if someone can give me a good definite answer.

If I can't get a positive definitive answer, then I will take the Try and see approach. If deleting them (one at a time) creates a problem, then I will recreate them and restore from the image copy.

Thank you much for considering my question.

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Dec 10, 2009
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Partitons
by: Support

Hello Ray,

So my question is: If I delete them, will my system boot ok?

No

Lets look at the structure of your 900GB hard drive -

100 Meg partition - SYSTEM RESERVED
15 Gig partition - Empty
67 Gig partition - System partition
500 Gig partition - Data?

What I am wondering is where the other 338 gig went.

I take it this is a Vista or Windows 7 Operating system.

The 100 Meg partiton called SYSTEM RESERVED is the boot partiton that MS started using with Vista, and carried over to Windows 7.

You used a partition sizing program that I am unfamillure with. I have used Partition Magic from time to time but with out good results.

You can make an imgage of the 100 meg and the 67 Gig partitons, the 500 Gig partition you should back up to an external drive (if you have one), how full is it? Will it fit on an external drive?

If you make images of the two Vista/Windows partitions and then store them on a device external to your computer or if you have a second hard drive (that is what I do) you can use the Image software to recreate your partitions.

Word of caution about the SYSTEM RESERVED partition - If it is not there and if it is NOT the active partition (see this page for more informaion - Partition and format a hard drive) the computer will not START!

You want to do a dual boot the see this page -

Dual Boot for your computer

I would set up the hard drive in this configuration:

100MB - SYSTEM RESERVED
30 Gig - Vista (First Operating System drive)
30 Gig - XXXXX (Second Operating System drive)
500 Gig - Data (First Data storage drive)
400+ Gig - Data (Second Data Storage drive)

I will look at the software you used to make your image because Ghost and True Image have gone the MS way of doing things, not cool.

Hope this helps...

Dec 10, 2009
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To Answer Your Questions.
by: Ray Again

To Answer your questions:

The other 338gb is there, just not part of any partition. I wanted to leave free space for another boot partition. Actually had thought I'd have 3, but scrapping that idea. The second partition is going to have my old Visual Studio programming development structure in XP with SQL Server and lots of other stuff I don't need to have when doing home stuff.

The 500gb drive has 300gb free.

I do back that up to an external drive

I have backups of the System Reserved, and that other one too, on the external drive.

I have used Macrium Reflect to restore and checked that it does boot. It saved me before, and I am sure will again... LOL.

That "Unnamed" partition contains Gateway Recovery disk (I think). Based on what you did not say, It might be something I can delete.

I will not delete System Reserved.

Thank you so much.....

Dec 10, 2009
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Operating System
by: Me Again

It is Windows 7. I never did Vista. I love the new one.

Dec 10, 2009
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Recovery Partition
by: Support

Hello Ray,

That "Unnamed" partition contains Gateway Recovery disk (I think). Based on what you did not say, It might be something I can delete.

It doesn't take up much space may want to keep it.

Did you read the Dual Boot page?

Hope this helps...

Dec 10, 2009
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Followup
by: Ray Again

Yes I did, and I have done this in XP before.

Problem is Windows7 will not let me create anymore partitions on that drive. Your recommendation (below) won't work because it creates 5 partitions. The StandAlone won't work, and PMAGIC.ISO will not boot. Oh well....

That is whole reason for the question....

Your recommendation:
100MB - SYSTEM RESERVED
30 Gig - Vista (First Operating System drive)
30 Gig - XXXXX (Second Operating System drive)
500 Gig - Data (First Data storage drive)
400+ Gig - Data (Second Data Storage drive)

Again, thank you....

***Edit Support***
The largest drive I have is 350 Gig, haven't tired to make that in to more than two partitions, even with XP. Time for an upgrade, :)

Dec 11, 2009
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5th Patition
by: Ray Again

Ok, after getting new clean image copies of everything I downloaded and installed a freeware Partition program called "Partition Wizzard".

Guess What, it did let me create 5th partition on the disk drive. But that partition is not Active, and can't yet figure out how to get that to happen so that it will boot.

Getting closer.... That program also has an ISO image for DVD Booting which I will try tomorrow.

Dec 11, 2009
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Active Partition
by: Support

Hello Ray,

You can only have one 'Active' partition.

That is why the partition called 'System Reserved' for Windows 7 and Vista is importatnt.

When you want to dual boot your computer one partition has to control all the boot sequences.

Before Vista you would use the oldest operating system to control the boot sequence.

Normally it would be with the boot.ini for Windows NT systems, config.sys with older DOS and 16 bit systems like Windows 3/95/98.

So your next logical step would be to install the OS you want to dual boot to, be aware that an older OS such as XP or Windows 2000 will not see Windows 7's System Reserved partition and will take control of the boot process. To get around this once your older OS is installed use the Drive Manager to set the System Reserve partition as the 'Active' partition and the dual boot process will work.

Hope this helps...

Dec 11, 2009
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Restore an image
by: Ray

If I restore my old xp partition to an empty one, is there a way to get W7 to allow me to boot to it without going through the whole installation process?

Dec 11, 2009
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Restore an old image to new computer
by: Support

Hello Ray,

You could, once you have the old image on the computer if it boots to the XP and does not give you a boot menu you will need to go to the Drive Manager in XP to set the System Reserve as the 'Active' partition.

How ever I don't think your older XP image will start at all. I think it will crash at startup.

So you may want to think twice before using an image from a different computer, all the hardware will be different there fore the drivers will not work because the hardware differances.

If you want to do a dual boot you may want to do a fresh install of XP.

What I could do is test your theroy by loading up a Virtual Machine with Windows 7 and then see if I put an older XP image on another partition and see what happens when I do it.

When I put Windows 7 on my main computer then restored a XP partition I lost access to the Windows 7. To get it back I used the Drive Manager to set the 'Active' partiton back to the System Reserve partiton.

Hope this helps...

Dec 12, 2009
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In conclusion
by: Ray

Yes I agree that restoring from another computer does create problems, but I did it before, from a Gateway dual core athaloh to an old Dell inspiron. Had to get network, video, and some other drivers, but did get it working, and then did get what I wanted copied off.

It was so easy editing the boot.ini file. Seems like W7 (and Vista which I did not try) are much harder to fool with.

I have not seen the boot manager program. But that stand Alone partition manager I downloaded will mark partition as active, so if that is all that is needed then I might give it a try.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, and thank you for the dialog.

Dec 14, 2009
Rating

video card drivers....
by: Ray

Well, I thought you might be interested in knowing this.

The final step was to plug in my nVidia gt7300 video card.

I tried to install drivers off net first, but they said no software was available to update. So I went ahead anyways, plugged it in.

Windows on startup recognized the card, installed drivers, but the ratings for AERO went from 3.5 to 1. Wow, I did not expect that.

After thinking I tried to install the 64bit nVidia driver I had downloaded.

That made a difference. Went back up to 4.5 (was 3.5 with the Intel Onboard software.)

So that was worth it.

Now I am all done.

What Next???

Enjoy...

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