Windows 8.x/10 only: Disable the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE).If a UAC prompt is displayed, click the Yes button. In Windows 8.x/10, press WinKey+X (or right-click the lower-left corner of the Desktop) and click Command Prompt (Admin) on the pop-up menu. Right-click on the Command Prompt item and select Run as administrator from the pop-up menu. To do this in Windows 7, click on the Start button, then All Programs, then Accessories. Start an Administrator mode Command Prompt.Close Explorer once you've determined the drive letter assignments.This can be especially helpful when trying to tell which partition is which from the Command Prompt.
For example, the label for the Windows 7 partition might be Win7. This can help you tell them apart more easily. Note: It's a good idea to give the partitions meaningful labels. In this example, C: is the Windows partition and E: is the System Reserved (booting) partition.
The Disk Management window will be displayed (may take several seconds to scan the drives).
Windows 7 Ultimate/Enterprise, Windows 8 Pro/Enterprise, Windows 10 Pro) and are currently using or plan to use BitLocker, do not remove the System Reserved partition. Note: If you are using a version of Windows that supports BitLocker (e.g. More information can be found in this Microsoft KB article. An example would be that you've formatted the Windows partition with 8K clusters. If your Windows partition does not have 4K clusters you will not be able to move the booting files to it. Important: The Windows booting files must reside on a partition with a NTFS cluster size of 4K (the default size). The size of this partition varies depending on the Windows version, but is usually 100MB to 500MB.Ĭopy the Windows booting files and Windows RE (Windows 8.x/10 only) to the Windows partition, apply the necessary BCD file corrections, and (optionally) remove the System Reserved partition. Windows Setup created the System Reserved partition containing the booting files and a second partition containing Windows. As a result, booting directly from the Windows partition is not possible.ĭuring the installation of Windows, a previously created primary NTFS partition was not specified as the destination. Windows setup created a System Reserved partition and installed the booting files on it. Do not attempt to perform this procedure on UEFI systems where Windows is installed on a GPT drive.
Important: This article covers removing the System Reserved partition created when installing Windows 7/8.x/10 on a MBR drive.