System reserved space

mark43 · 31 Oct 2012 at 20:57

Can anyone help with something that's confusing me?

I have a SSD that I've just installed Win8 on and a second larger drive for storage. There is a 100MB partition on the second drive called system reserved, I think this was created when I originally installed Win7, but I never really noticed it as there was no drive letter assigned so it just sat there.

So I'm unsure if this is just something left over from Win7 or if its also used by Win8. My concern is not that I need the extra space on the 2nd drive, but why isn't it on the first drive? If this is something Windows needs then will I be unable to boot if my second drive fails, even though my main drive is fine?

Screen shot of how it looks below, Any ideas?

silversurfer · 31 Oct 2012 at 21:11

Its not a standard part of win7 afaik. Disable the Disk 1 in the bios then boot, should be fine anyway as a test

mark43 · 31 Oct 2012 at 21:48

Ah great thanks, I didn't think to try that.

Damned if I could work out how to disable it in my BIOS so I unplugged it, booted fine so looks like to definitely don't need to worry about it.

No idea where it came from, the googling I did seemed to suggest Win7 (and 8) created something like this but I don't really know.

Anyway, looks like I can safely ignore it, thanks again.

djkav · 31 Oct 2012 at 22:31

silversurfer said:
Its not a standard part of win7 afaik. Disable the Disk 1 in the bios then boot, should be fine anyway as a test

Sorry, but it is a standard of Win 7 and Win 8.

If you had a blank new, unpartitioned HDD and use the normal win 7 & 8 set up to partition and format the new drive. It creates a secret 100mb partition to store the system recovery console and files. It can also store the MBR (Master Boot Record) for windows. So deleting it could render windows unbootable, without the MBR.

The way not to have the secret partition was to already partition the new drive from within an installed windows.

mark43 · 31 Oct 2012 at 22:36

Thanks, though I'm still confused in that case.

I installed Windows 8 as a clean install on the SSD. I ran the installer, formatted the drive and then selected that drive as the install location, so should it not have just included the hidden partition on that drive.

Unless what I'm seeing is left over from my old Win7 install and it did put it on the SSD this time, but I don't see a separate partition?

djkav · 31 Oct 2012 at 22:59

mark43 said:
Thanks, though I'm still confused in that case.

I installed Windows 8 as a clean install on the SSD. I ran the installer, formatted the drive and then selected that drive as the install location, so should it not have just included the hidden partition on that drive.

Unless what I'm seeing is left over from my old Win7 install and it did put it on the SSD this time, but I don't see a separate partition?

It should only create the secret partition on a new non-partitioned drive. If you already have a partition on the drive, then the installer won't create the secret partition.

If you deleted all partitions from your drive and then use the installer to create a new partition. It may then add the secret partition.

Sighn · 1 Nov 2012 at 04:16

mark43 said:
Thanks, though I'm still confused in that case.

I installed Windows 8 as a clean install on the SSD. I ran the installer, formatted the drive and then selected that drive as the install location, so should it not have just included the hidden partition on that drive.

Unless what I'm seeing is left over from my old Win7 install and it did put it on the SSD this time, but I don't see a separate partition?

I've the same - system reserved space on, what used to be, the boot drive for an old install of Windows 7. The small partition, serving Windows 7, was always there but hidden from Windows Explorer.

My current boot drive has its own hidden reserved space for booting Windows 8.

Your option for installation of Windows 8 was for a drive that was partitioned (you were able format it).

mark43 · 1 Nov 2012 at 09:09

Thank you both, I think I understand now. By non-partitioned I was thinking single partition, but I guess you're saying a new drive that doesn't even have a single partition? I assumed a new drive would already have a single partition.

Not sure how that resevered space came to be on the 2nd drive as Win7 was installed on my primary drive, but its quite possible that I started installing it on the wrong drive originally back when I installed it, can't quite remember.

Looks like I should definitely be fine then, though I'm half tempted to wipe both anyway as I've got everything backed up and it wouldn't take that much time I guess.