Re: Win 7/64 pro "Reserved partition" question

The 100MB reserved partition is the default structure Microsoft designed
into Windows 7 when doing a clean install. This was supposed to as a
security measure to reduce the affect of malware writing to your boot
partition.

The best thing to do is to just ignore it and forget about it.


On 2009-12-29 15:45, Sardine wrote:
> My installed W7 has its active booting partition be a small 100 MB
> partition that has no drive letter assigned, it is called "reserved".
> I'm told that if I had installed to a formatted drive, this small
> partition would not exist.
>
> I'd like to get rid of it and have W7 boot right to the C: system
> partition.
>
> In doing some fiddling with ShadowProtect Inage Backup I managed to
> eliminate the small partition and now I boot just fine to C: and my "F8"
> function on booting still works fine.
>
> Am I in a "bad" situation or is this acceptable to keep this way?
>
> Fungus

This small reserved partition had another reason for existance as well --
BitLocker requires a small system partition that is unencrypted. In Vista,
you had to either manually create this, or use the tool that was provided to
create it when you enabled BitLocker. In Win7, this is created by default.

--
Charlie.
http://msmvps.com/blogs/russel




"Bobby Johnson" <> wrote in message
news:...
> The 100MB reserved partition is the default structure Microsoft designed
> into Windows 7 when doing a clean install. This was supposed to as a
> security measure to reduce the affect of malware writing to your boot
> partition.
>
> The best thing to do is to just ignore it and forget about it.
>
>
> On 2009-12-29 15:45, Sardine wrote:
>> My installed W7 has its active booting partition be a small 100 MB
>> partition that has no drive letter assigned, it is called "reserved".
>> I'm told that if I had installed to a formatted drive, this small
>> partition would not exist.
>>
>> I'd like to get rid of it and have W7 boot right to the C: system
>> partition.
>>
>> In doing some fiddling with ShadowProtect Inage Backup I managed to
>> eliminate the small partition and now I boot just fine to C: and my "F8"
>> function on booting still works fine.
>>
>> Am I in a "bad" situation or is this acceptable to keep this way?
>>
>> Fungus

Charlie,
And it is also quite handy as a recovery environment.
Somehow my boot was screwed up when testing a liveCD (Geexbox) and I didn't
had to resort to my installation DVD.
The reserved partition software took care of everything and fixed my no-boot
situation.
Carlos

"Charlie Russel - MVP" wrote:

> This small reserved partition had another reason for existance as well --
> BitLocker requires a small system partition that is unencrypted. In Vista,
> you had to either manually create this, or use the tool that was provided to
> create it when you enabled BitLocker. In Win7, this is created by default.
>
> --
> Charlie.
> http://msmvps.com/blogs/russel
>
>
>
>
> "Bobby Johnson" <> wrote in message
> news:...
> > The 100MB reserved partition is the default structure Microsoft designed
> > into Windows 7 when doing a clean install. This was supposed to as a
> > security measure to reduce the affect of malware writing to your boot
> > partition.
> >
> > The best thing to do is to just ignore it and forget about it.
> >
> >
> > On 2009-12-29 15:45, Sardine wrote:
> >> My installed W7 has its active booting partition be a small 100 MB
> >> partition that has no drive letter assigned, it is called "reserved".
> >> I'm told that if I had installed to a formatted drive, this small
> >> partition would not exist.
> >>
> >> I'd like to get rid of it and have W7 boot right to the C: system
> >> partition.
> >>
> >> In doing some fiddling with ShadowProtect Inage Backup I managed to
> >> eliminate the small partition and now I boot just fine to C: and my "F8"
> >> function on booting still works fine.
> >>
> >> Am I in a "bad" situation or is this acceptable to keep this way?
> >>
> >> Fungus
>
> .
>

Yes, that's where the recovery files are. Again, they need to be on a
non-encrypted partition, and thus reside here for the scenario where
BitLocker is used on the C: drive.

It's also a recognition that HDs have gotten very large indeed, and the
"loss" of a small portion like this doesn't significantly impact the
effective size.

--
Charlie.
http://msmvps.com/blogs/russel




"Carlos" <> wrote in message
news:FCCEAD80-B15A-4E08-A848-...
> Charlie,
> And it is also quite handy as a recovery environment.
> Somehow my boot was screwed up when testing a liveCD (Geexbox) and I
> didn't
> had to resort to my installation DVD.
> The reserved partition software took care of everything and fixed my
> no-boot
> situation.
> Carlos
>
> "Charlie Russel - MVP" wrote:
>
>> This small reserved partition had another reason for existance as well --
>> BitLocker requires a small system partition that is unencrypted. In
>> Vista,
>> you had to either manually create this, or use the tool that was provided
>> to
>> create it when you enabled BitLocker. In Win7, this is created by
>> default.
>>
>> --
>> Charlie.
>> http://msmvps.com/blogs/russel
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> "Bobby Johnson" <> wrote in message
>> news:...
>> > The 100MB reserved partition is the default structure Microsoft
>> > designed
>> > into Windows 7 when doing a clean install. This was supposed to as a
>> > security measure to reduce the affect of malware writing to your boot
>> > partition.
>> >
>> > The best thing to do is to just ignore it and forget about it.
>> >
>> >
>> > On 2009-12-29 15:45, Sardine wrote:
>> >> My installed W7 has its active booting partition be a small 100 MB
>> >> partition that has no drive letter assigned, it is called "reserved".
>> >> I'm told that if I had installed to a formatted drive, this small
>> >> partition would not exist.
>> >>
>> >> I'd like to get rid of it and have W7 boot right to the C: system
>> >> partition.
>> >>
>> >> In doing some fiddling with ShadowProtect Inage Backup I managed to
>> >> eliminate the small partition and now I boot just fine to C: and my
>> >> "F8"
>> >> function on booting still works fine.
>> >>
>> >> Am I in a "bad" situation or is this acceptable to keep this way?
>> >>
>> >> Fungus
>>
>> .
>>