Still Need System Partition?

I upgraded my Win 7 to Win 8 in the way: Win 7 x86 -> Win 8 Preview amd64 -> Win 8 amd64

Now I found that the hidden system partition, that was created by Win7, was assigned to d: and readily for read at least.
I un-assigned it to any drive letter then.
Does it mean that this 100MB system partition is no longer needed by Win8? What's its function now?

WElcome to EightForums.

Windows 8 has replaced the Windows 7 boot files with Windows 8 boot files, therefore still need.

Thanks for your rapid reply!

I asked because I found that I can boot (the same single Windows 8) from either partitions! The pic attached is the boot loader of my Ubuntu. In the past, it just showed me a single Windows 7 entry.

Not a lover of mixing Windows & Linux.

One is the System Resevred Partition, one the main Windows 8 partition.

System reserved for Windows 7 is 100 MB, System Reserved for Windows 8 (on my system) is 350 MB. There are a lot of utilities etc, in there that can be used to recover your Windows 8 install if it goes south. There are ways to get rid of it but it's likely better to just leave it alone.

Thanks for your advices.

Hi there
the only way to install a system WITHOUT needing the small reservd partition is to IN ADVANCE allocate the ENTIRE HDD to a single PRIMARY partition and format it first. Use something like standalone version of partition wizard or GPARTED to create this..

Then install windows.

Afterwards use GPARTED / partition wizard to reduce the size of the partition to what you actually want.

Now you should find you don't have the small system partition.

(Not for GPT disks by the way).

Cheers
jimbo