win 7 system partition - recovery q

Temmu · Nov 19, 2013

greets, sysnative denizens!

as you know, win 7 creates a system reserved partition in addition to the partition you can see with windows explorer.
that is where the glorious boot files are hidden.

q's about the system reserved partition

1. what file system? fat, fat32, ntfs... ext3?
2. assuming (horrible thing to do!) that "running machine" has the same windows 7 build (service pack nr.) that "broke machine" had,
could one simply copy the contents of the system reserved partition to "broke machine" to fix that portion of it?

thanks!
ps
if you have any microsoft references, that would be greatly appreciated!

Digerati · Nov 20, 2013

It should be noted that not everyone has that partition. If the drive is formatted and partitioned (even with just one big partition) before installing Windows 7, one will not be created - nor will it be missed unless you want to later use BitLocker Drive Encryption. Without the hidden partition, the "boot manager code" and "boot configuration database" are simply saved on the "normal" boot drive/partition.

If your system has it, you should be able to see it Disk Management where you will note it is formatted with NTFS.

I don't know how you can "copy" the files because to do so, you would have to assign a drive letter to that partition and I am not sure that would be a good idea. However, an imaging backup program can make an image backup of it. Or you can create a new one.

That said, I don't consider myself a Windows expert so others may chime in with more information.

Temmu · Nov 26, 2013

ah, so. thx, digerati!
so where are the boot files, as in xp, where you can copy 3 or 4 files from a good xp install and put them in the root of c:\ and the corrupt xp machine will once again boot.

Digerati · Nov 27, 2013

so where are the boot files

As I said above, in the normal boot drive/partition. But I would not try to copy them. Instead, it would be better to run repair from the install disk.

See Create a system repair disc

Temmu · Dec 3, 2013

ok, thanks, digerati!

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win 7 system partition - recovery q

Temmu

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Digerati

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Hardware Expert
Microsoft MVP (Ret.)

Temmu

Well-known member

Digerati

Moderator
Hardware Expert
Microsoft MVP (Ret.)

Temmu

Well-known member

win 7 system partition - recovery q

Temmu

Well-known member

Digerati

ModeratorHardware ExpertMicrosoft MVP (Ret.)

Temmu

Well-known member

Digerati

ModeratorHardware ExpertMicrosoft MVP (Ret.)

Temmu

Well-known member

Moderator
Hardware Expert
Microsoft MVP (Ret.)

Moderator
Hardware Expert
Microsoft MVP (Ret.)