Windows 7 Reserve Partition Missing

After installing Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit upgrade (clean install) on a PC, I noticed that Image for Windows does not show a System Reserved Partition. In addition, the PC always stops at the screen which says something about Windows not being properly shut down with the option to start Windows normally. When the option to start Windows normally is selected, the PC boots into Windows.

Could the following have caused the problem and how can I correct this problem?

This was the second time that Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit was installed on the PC. The first time, the error of having another hard drive connected was made. Windows installed the Windows System Reserved Partition on that hard drive instead of the one where Window 7 was selected to be installed. To correct this, I used GParted to delete the Windows 7 System Reserved Partition and made and formatted a new Partition. The hard drive which previously had the Windows 7 System Reserved Partition was disconnected. Then the PC owner and myself went to install Windows 7 on the correct hard drive and received the message that another Windows installation was on that Partition and do you want Windows to store the previous Windows installation in a folder named something like "Windows-Old". I suggested to the PC owner to boot back into GParted, delete and recreate the partition, but he said let's go ahead and install Windows, and I can delete the "Windows-Old" folder later which is what he did.

Question: Did the Windows 7 installer see that the previous installation of Windows had put the Windows 7 System Reserved on another hard drive and assumed that it was still there?

Any comments/suggestions on how to resolve this problem (without starting over by installing Windows 7 again)?

Thanks in Advance.

 

Hi TheKid7

As far as I am aware, Win7 sets itself up with the SRP if it is installed in an unallocated space. Installing in a formatted partition it will not create the SRP.

In any case, it sounds to me that it may be a BCD issue, and it may be looking for that disconnected drive you mentioned, in addition it appears their is boot corruption of some sort. At the boot prompt you are getting, are you able to enter "Repair your computer"? If not try tapping the F8 key before boot starts, and then choose repair your computer. it will boot into a recovery environment in which you can utilize BCDedit and other boot functions. If you ran that tool, it would likely point to an entry of the disconnected drive.

That may help, but it may be best to actually format the partition you are installing on, then reinstall Win7 into that formatted partition. In this fashion you will not get the SRP, (unless you want that then just install in unallocated space), and your boot issues should be resolved. It may save some time to try and use the BCDedit function in recovery if you know how to use it. This link may assist you.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc709667(v=ws.10).aspx

Some of the steps taken sounds like the owner was in a hurry to install originally, and I agree with what you wanted to do, and it would have saved some time now that you have to possibly do it any how. Computing does have potential to drive one a bit buggy LOL

Hope you can get it worked out. I would personally consider a proper clean install, whether you opt for the SRP or an install to a formatted partition.

Maybe tell the owner if he wants this done properly, to be a bit patient

 

I have done some Searches and have found some references that if you install Windows 7 on a hard drive with more than one partition and the partition which is selected for the Windows 7 installation has already been formatted, then Windows 7 will not create a System Reserve Partition.

Today I plan to use the Windows 7 Installation Disk to do a Startup Repair to see if the startup problem will go away.

 

TK7, your Startup Repair will be successful but your System Resreve Partition will not be usable following the repair.

As was mentioned earlier, only a CLEAN INSTALL on an unformatted area will produce both the SRP and the W7 BOOT partition, with an MBR being installed that will boot through the SRP.

If you install W7 on a formatted partition, that will become the W7 BOOT partition and the MBR will be installed to BOOT directly from the W7 BOOT partition.

The Startup Repair will reconfigure the MBR to BOOT directly to the W7 BOOT partition... no SRP will be available.