Old "System Reserved" partition - safe to delete?

TheVoice · 8 Aug 2012 at 19:44

Hi guys, hope you can help me. I've just recently installed an SSD into my system and put Windows on there. Having done so, I'm now intending to delete the old partition on my RAID 0 array that had Windows on as it's no longer needed. However, on that array I also have the obligatory 100MB "System Reserved" partition, which my new Windows install actually detected as a usable partition and assigned a drive letter to.

Am I correct in assuming that this System Reserved partition was used solely by the old Windows install and is safe to delete now? The last thing I want to do is upset the RAID array or compromise my data on there so I thought it'd be best to check first.

hansp · 8 Aug 2012 at 21:16

What is your "system" partition, according to disk management?

wazza300 · 8 Aug 2012 at 21:19

Is the ssd part of the array? If not the its probably safe to delete,could back up first if you can just to be 100% sure

TheVoice · 8 Aug 2012 at 22:49

hansp said:
What is your "system" partition, according to disk management?

Here's a screenshot, probably easier than me trying to explain:

http://i.imgur.com/ULNll.png

Disk 0 is the SSD, Disk 1 is the RAID array and Disk 2 is separate HDD.

What I intend to do is delete the 'old' System Reserved Partition (Z

and the old Windows partition (H

and merge them with D:, but I'm reluctant to do that until I know my RAID array will be safe. The sooner the better though, the system just managed to boot itself into the old Windows install somehow so I'd like to get rid of it before it starts causing any more problems.

I've used WinDirStat on the Z: partition and it appears to just contain the normal boot files and emergency tools that Windows uses, I can't see anything on there that relates to the RAID array or anything but of course I don't know how/if it stores these things there so I'd rather be safe than sorry. I presume it doesn't contain any RAID data as that partition would only have been created during the Windows install.

FoxEye · 8 Aug 2012 at 23:19

yeah the system reserved on disk 1 (the 2tb) is just another parition as far as your new windows install is concerned.

you noticed in disk management your ssd system reserved partition has the keyword "system", but the other one (on disk 1) doesn't.