Boot and system on different drives, need to move system files. Win 7

[Chris Wilson]

I have discovered a problem I wasn't even aware I had until trying to do a system image to a tape drive. It seems when I refurbished my PC I have ended up with the the boot files for Windows 7 Pro 64 bit on my SSD C: Drive, and the system files on a RAID 1 SATA array of two 1 Tb drives. I want to move the system files to my C: Drive , which is the SSD one. In the bios I have confirmed disabling the RAID drives causes Windows to fail to boot.

The fact the system files are on a different drive is causing issues when doing a system image as the destination drive also contains said files and some software is saying it cannot do this. Plus I think for best reliability the RAID needs to be independent of Windows boot and system files?

For clarity I have put a full screen size shot of Windows 7 Disk Management showing how the drives are currently at http://www.chriswilson.tv/partitions.jpg

Can anyone tell me how to safely achieve this movement of the system files to my SSD C: Drive please? Thanks.

I Googled this a little and it seems this is possible to do by booting into the Win 7 CD and going to the repair utility. But in all the Googled info the system files seem to be in a separate partition, but according to my Disk Manager mine are not. Will this still work? Do I need to unplug the RAID 1 drives first? Do I need to change the boot order in the bios first (first as in before running the repair utility on the Win 7 CD?), and put C: Drive after the CD drive and disable the RAID 1 Drives in the boot menu? Do I need to make the C: Drive partition "Active"? Is this all a risky process?

Thanks.

 

[kitfit1]

Hi Chris, i'm going to try to answer this, but you might not like hearing what i'm going to say. First i'm going to make some guesses and if i'm wrong then tell me ? I'm guessing the raid array was created and set up before you installed the SSD ? I'm also guessing that it was registered in the bios as the first HDD to boot ? I'm also guessing that when requested during the Win7 install you selected to install to the SSD ?
As a good guide, when installing Windows you should always disconnect any other hard drives, but as you had a raid array i can understand the need to leave it there (so that Windows could install the needed raid drivers). That's why it would have been very important to place the SSD as the first boot option in the bios. During you first install Windows has placed the boot files and system files on the 1st registered boot drive (raid array). When you look at your disc management photo, you can see this is the case because you are missing the 100MB boot partition in the screen shot from my laptop below:

All Win7 installs need that partition, it has the boot loader on it. Although you have read that it should be possible to copy and move it, in practice it wont work for you because you have no boot partition.
There are actually 2 options available to you for creating a system image. One is to add another drive and back a system image up to that. The other and in my opinion best option, is to simply re-install Win7 to the SSD. Obviously you will want the raid array connected and set to raid in the bios, because this will also set the SSD to AHCI at the same time. Just make sure 100% that the SSD is first on the list of bootable drives. Depending on your bios, you may even have the option to take the raid array off of the boot list altogether.

 

[Chris Wilson]

Hi, thanks for the detailed reply,. Initially the computer had a C: Drive (SSD) and a single D: Drive (normal platter drive). When I installed Win 7 Pro 64 bit it must have put the boot and system files on the D: Drive. Despite being new that D; Drive soon started to fail with errors. I lost some data, but nothing critical. I then decided to rebuild it with a RAID 1 pair of D: Drives. It was then I realised the PC has Sytem files and the Boot directory on the D: Drive (s).

What I eventually found, after discovering Windows 7 repair utility, even run several times, would not fix it, after disconnecting the RAID pair, was Visual BCD, a small free application. It easily moved the Sytem and Boot stuff to the C: Drive. I then took ownership of the old Boot directory and bootmgr on the D: Drives and reset permissions and deleted them. I can now boot solely off the C: Drive, even with the RAID discoonected. AFAIK ther's no real problem not having the hidden 100Mb partition.


Thanks to some more reading and your very helpful reply I will go about my next Windows 7 install with only one drive connected, although I think I would still prefer no hidden partition, and I have seen how to achieve that by partitioning before allowing the Windows 7 DVD to load the OS.

Please see:

http://www.chriswilson.tv/manager.jpg

http://www.chriswilson.tv/root2.jpg

http://www.chriswilson.tv/D_Drive.jpg



Thanks again!

 

[kitfit1]

Glad that you found a work round for it Chris. There is one very large reason for letting Windows create that boot partition the next time you do a re-install though. If you ever want to use Bit Locker, you absolutely need that partition because it simply won't work without it. It de-crypts the drive during loading Windows, plus of course, without it you can't encrypt the drive either.

 

[bledd]

When installing Windows, only connect up the drive you want to install Windows onto.

Connect up the other drives afterwards, stops issues like this happening. This has been the golden rule since XP.