Solved A Partitioning Mess

glasskuter

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For some unknown reason I decided to mess with my partitioning arrangement in preparation of the upcoming Windows 10 release. Using my backups my goal was to have Windows 7 on the first 500gb partition and Windows 8.1 on the second 430gb partition. Once Windows 7 upgraded to Windows 10 I intended to move my Windows 8.1 to another machine (using Acronis universal restore) and then extend Windows 10 into its drive space. I have accomplished this, the partitions are arranged on the disk like I want, and both operating systems boot fine.

My problem is this-I have no "system reserved Partition".

Booting from Windows 7 (the first partition) disk management shows this way:
Dell-Windows 7 (C:) Simple Basic NTFS Healthy (System, Boot, Page File, Active, Crash Dump Primary Partition) 500 gb
Dell-Windows 8.1 (D:) Simple, Basic,Ntfs, Healthy (Primary Partition) 430 gb
I left 1 gb unallocated space at the end of the drive

Is there any way I can establish a "system reserved" partition in the unallocated space , move my boot files to it, and make it the active partition? My mind reels at the thought of having to re-install both operating systems from scratch.

Another question - If I leave it as is and then upgrade to Windows 10 will Windows 10 even boot?

I'd really like to get this as it should be before I do the Windows 10 upgrade. I appreciate any help.
edit-I have no idea how I got the smiley faces in this post.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8
But what about the 450mb partition?? One more question.

Thank you for taking the time to respond. I've read a lot on the web and understand that since my boot files reside on the Win7 partition I'm good in relation to being able to boot okand I suppose that once I upgrade that Win10 will retain being the active partition. I've read where a lot of people do away with the system reserved partition altogether (although I can't understand why they would want to). But I'm also missing the 450 mb partition that from what I understand hold the files necessary to recover Windows 8 should the need arise. I understand that once I upgrade Win7 to Win10 that the upgrade will make its own 450 mb hidden partition that will hold Win10 recovery files. Will this same partition hold all the files necessary to recover either Win8 or Win10 (if I were to decide to keep the dual boot arrangement of both 8 and 10). I'm wanting to understand exactly how this works because right now it is all a great big grey area for me.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8
edit-I have no idea how I got the smiley faces in this post.

Just an FYI,

If you want to disable smilies you need to use the advanced editor,

2015-07-06_19h10_32.png

Then tick the box to disable smilies,

2015-07-06_19h07_51.png
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win 10 Pro x64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
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    Self Built
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    Intel I5-2500K @3.3GHz
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    Asrock P67 Extreme4
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    16GB G.Skill Ripjaws X (4x4GB)
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    EVGA GeForce 750 Ti SC 2GB
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    ASUS Xonar DG 5.1 Channels 24-bit 96KHz PCI Interface Sound Card
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    auria eq2367
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    250GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD
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    Corsair H60, Three 140mm case fans
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    RAM: Crucial 8Gb (2x4Gb) /
    SSD: Crucial M4-CT128M4SSD2 ATA Device/ FW 000F /
    GFX: AMD Radeon HD 6520G /
    OS: Windows 10 Pro x64
It would be easier if you post a screen shot of your Disk Management then I can suggest what to do.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    8.1x64PWMC Ubuntu14.04x64 MintMate17x64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home Brewed
    CPU
    I7 4970K OC'ed @4.7 GHz
    Motherboard
    MSI-Z97
    Memory
    16 GB G-Skill Trident X @2400MHZ
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450
    Sound Card
    X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional Series
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Dual HP-W2408
    Screen Resolution
    1920X1200
    Hard Drives
    256 GB M2 sm951, (2) 500GB 850EVO, 5TB, 2 TB Seagate
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    Antec 850W
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    Antec 1200
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    Danger Den H20
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    Logitech
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    Logitech Performance Mouse MX
    Internet Speed
    35/12mbps
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    Firefox
OK. When playing with partitions, I would strongly advise to make a backup image first using Macrium Reflect Free, just in case something goes wrong.

Under normal Windows 7 installation, without first formatting the drive, left it unallocated then Windows will create an extra 100MB reserved partition and put the bootmgr, BCD there and C drive will contains the Recovery software (WinRe.wim). Since you pre-formatted the drive, Windows put everything in C Drive. The same will be true for Windows 8 installation.

On a fresh install of Windows 10 build 10162, it will create a 500MB reserved partition and put everything there (bootmgr (385K), BCD(40K), Recovery (300MB)) so if you upgrade from Windows 7, Windows 10 will not have enough room for those files hence it will create an extra reserved partition (450MB). So if you allocated enough space (500MB) for reserved partition the the upgrade might not create the extra recovery partition, keeping everything neat and clean.
Here's my suggestion:
  1. Download: Bootable Partition Manger | MiniTool Partition Wizard Bootable Edition and use: Rufus - Create bootable USB to create a bootable USB stick then boot your PC with it.
  2. After step 1, on the first screen, right click on C: Drive->Move/Resize then hold to move it to the right about 500MB
  3. Do the same for D: Drive, click "OK" then click on "Apply" on the top let corner to commit the change.
  4. After step 2, 3. You should have a 500 MB unallocated space at the beginning of disk 0.
  5. Disconnect the USB, and reboot back to Windows. Initialize the 500MB unallocated space and create a simple volume and assign it to letter Z:
  6. Download: EasyBCD - NeoSmart Technologies and install it. (It's free for home use) then run it. Follow the screen below to move the boot manager to Z:
    EasyBCD.png
  7. At this point, you should end up with: 500 MB reserved partition, Drive D, Drive C and an extra 500 MB unallocated space at the end.

FYI, why did you create an extended partition for disk 1 ? Normally, MBR disk type will only allow max. of 4 primary partitions created on a disk. When you exceed 4 partitions then you would create an extended partition. Otherwise, just create a primary partition for disk 1.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    8.1x64PWMC Ubuntu14.04x64 MintMate17x64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home Brewed
    CPU
    I7 4970K OC'ed @4.7 GHz
    Motherboard
    MSI-Z97
    Memory
    16 GB G-Skill Trident X @2400MHZ
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450
    Sound Card
    X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional Series
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Dual HP-W2408
    Screen Resolution
    1920X1200
    Hard Drives
    256 GB M2 sm951, (2) 500GB 850EVO, 5TB, 2 TB Seagate
    PSU
    Antec 850W
    Case
    Antec 1200
    Cooling
    Danger Den H20
    Keyboard
    Logitech
    Mouse
    Logitech Performance Mouse MX
    Internet Speed
    35/12mbps
    Browser
    Firefox
Nice little tutorial Topgun,

So far (anyway) windows 10 has created the 450MB winre partition only on my GPT system.. Dual Boot 8.1 and 10

On the MBR system the winre is on the same partition as the OS.. Quad boot vista, 7, 8.1 and 10 (4 partitions)
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 3.1 > Windows 10
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Dell XPS 8700
    CPU
    I7
    Memory
    24 GB
@KYHI
Thanks.
So far (anyway) windows 10 has created the 450MB winre partition only on my GPT system.. Dual Boot 8.1 and 10
Depend on what build of Win10 you are installing. With build 10130, The GPT system is shown below:
b10130.png
Therefore, if you update from build 10130 (Reserved = 300MB) to 10147/10162, Windows will create an extra reserved partition of 450MB after C drive, move Winre to this partition and modify reagent.xml to point to this partition.

From build 10147 ->10162, they increase the size to 450MB as shown:
b10147.png
So if you update from 10147->10162, No extra partition will be created after C drive.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    8.1x64PWMC Ubuntu14.04x64 MintMate17x64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home Brewed
    CPU
    I7 4970K OC'ed @4.7 GHz
    Motherboard
    MSI-Z97
    Memory
    16 GB G-Skill Trident X @2400MHZ
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450
    Sound Card
    X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional Series
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Dual HP-W2408
    Screen Resolution
    1920X1200
    Hard Drives
    256 GB M2 sm951, (2) 500GB 850EVO, 5TB, 2 TB Seagate
    PSU
    Antec 850W
    Case
    Antec 1200
    Cooling
    Danger Den H20
    Keyboard
    Logitech
    Mouse
    Logitech Performance Mouse MX
    Internet Speed
    35/12mbps
    Browser
    Firefox
i was meaning that his win7 and win8 disk is MBR - thus no winre partition - winre on same partition as OS
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 3.1 > Windows 10
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Dell XPS 8700
    CPU
    I7
    Memory
    24 GB
Thank you so much TopGundcp!
Your instructions were very easy to understand. For anyone else who might read this post I want to add one thing. For some reason EasyBCD did not make the newly created Z: partition as active so at first the system did not boot. I don't know why. It was just a matter of booting to the Windows 8 install disk and using DISKPART to mark the Z: partition active. Both OS now boot fine.
After doing what you said I actually ended up with a 600 mb Z: System Reserved partition but I guess more is better.
It will be interesting to see what it all looks like after I upgrade Windows 7 to 10.
Thank you and all the other gurus on this board for your time in helping others who are floundering in uncharted waters.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8
You are welcome. Glad we could help.
It will be interesting to see what it all looks like after I upgrade Windows 7 to 10.
If you want to test it.
  1. Backup your Windows 7 & 8 using Macrium.
  2. Download the ISO for Windows 10 build 10162.
  3. Boot up Win 7
  4. Mount the ISO and run setup.
  5. After done with the test, Restore Windows 7.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    8.1x64PWMC Ubuntu14.04x64 MintMate17x64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home Brewed
    CPU
    I7 4970K OC'ed @4.7 GHz
    Motherboard
    MSI-Z97
    Memory
    16 GB G-Skill Trident X @2400MHZ
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450
    Sound Card
    X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional Series
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Dual HP-W2408
    Screen Resolution
    1920X1200
    Hard Drives
    256 GB M2 sm951, (2) 500GB 850EVO, 5TB, 2 TB Seagate
    PSU
    Antec 850W
    Case
    Antec 1200
    Cooling
    Danger Den H20
    Keyboard
    Logitech
    Mouse
    Logitech Performance Mouse MX
    Internet Speed
    35/12mbps
    Browser
    Firefox
Another note for anyone finding this thread-I went ahead upgraded my WIn7 to the WIn10 preview to see what my partitions would look like. Sure enough WIn10 made another partition as seen in this screenshot. In the end it seems making the system reserved partition plenty large did not make a difference. Microsoft's method of automatically partitioning has a mind of its own. I ended up with a little wasted disk space but with a large hard drive I don't guess it will matter. I hope I don't get a senior moment in the future and get confused when I go to make backups. Just wanted to show others what theirs might look like. Thanks everyone.
Capture.PNG
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8
May I ask what build of Windows 10 did you test with ?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    8.1x64PWMC Ubuntu14.04x64 MintMate17x64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home Brewed
    CPU
    I7 4970K OC'ed @4.7 GHz
    Motherboard
    MSI-Z97
    Memory
    16 GB G-Skill Trident X @2400MHZ
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450
    Sound Card
    X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional Series
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Dual HP-W2408
    Screen Resolution
    1920X1200
    Hard Drives
    256 GB M2 sm951, (2) 500GB 850EVO, 5TB, 2 TB Seagate
    PSU
    Antec 850W
    Case
    Antec 1200
    Cooling
    Danger Den H20
    Keyboard
    Logitech
    Mouse
    Logitech Performance Mouse MX
    Internet Speed
    35/12mbps
    Browser
    Firefox
windows 10 does not work like windows 8.1 - the partition structure is different

Windows 10 MBR = System, OS, WinRE
Windows 10 GPT = System, MSR, OS, WinRE

They have moved WinRE to the last partition, just incase it needs to resize it later
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 3.1 > Windows 10
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Dell XPS 8700
    CPU
    I7
    Memory
    24 GB
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