Windows 7 System Partition Questions

[BarkingGhostar]

This morning I am experimenting with a pair of SSDs and how to best install Windows 7 Professional upon one of them. Previous experience at letting the install DVD do its magic resulted in a 100MB System partition and an 120GB-100MB partition in which the operating system was actually installed upon.

Late last year I discovered, with some reading on Anandtech, that for some odd reason the 100MB System partition could result in W7 backup not working if there isn't enough free space on the System partition. I now sought a way around this.

First, I attempted to make a System partition larger during the very initial W7 install, but anything I made was just ignored and the install DVD made a 100MB System partition. Surprisingly, when I started from scratch and made a 500MB partition and allowed the install DVD make a 100MB System partition and an 120GB-100MB-500MB install partition I could turn around and delete the 100MB and 500 MB partitions, create a 600MB partition.

The strange thing is the install DVD just moved the 'System' partition files to the 120GB-600MB partition and installed just fine. Once it rebooted after this very initial install, I was able to venture into Disk management and delete the 600MB partition and the system still booted just fine.

This begs the question: Why does the DVD install disk make a separate System partition in the first place if it can place the 'System' requirements on the regular install partition? I just don't understand. If there isn't a separate partition for 'System' how does that impact other features and or services?

BTW, the SSDs are Samsung EVO 120GB and I can experiment at will for now. These will later be used in the wife's new work computer where the second SSD will be used to make a backup copy of the other SSD.

 

[ArisVer]

Not really answering your question but a couple of suggestions.

After you finish a normal installation, change the partitions using partition management software (like EaseUS).

Since you have two identical disks (I assume), configure them in RAID 0 as a backup.

 

[Dahak]

The primary use of the 100MB system partition is used for Bitlocker / UEFI boot loader as both of those have to be 1) unencrypted, and 2) UEFI had to be on a fat32 partition as it cannot read NTFs.

As to why windows backup fails, not sure unless its trying to back up TO the system partition which it should not


Generally you can either
1) leave it alone and ignore it as 100mb space wise is not much to be concered about
2) create a single partition before install it and and it will not create that 100mb system partition

 

[BarkingGhostar]

Not really answering your question but a couple of suggestions.

After you finish a normal installation, change the partitions using partition management software (like EaseUS).

Since you have two identical disks (I assume), configure them in RAID 0 as a backup.

RAID 0 is striping. Not sure how that will leave me with two copies of a boot drive.

The primary use of the 100MB system partition is used for Bitlocker / UEFI boot loader as both of those have to be 1) unencrypted, and 2) UEFI had to be on a fat32 partition as it cannot read NTFs.

As to why windows backup fails, not sure unless its trying to back up TO the system partition which it should not


Generally you can either
1) leave it alone and ignore it as 100mb space wise is not much to be concered about
2) create a single partition before install it and and it will not create that 100mb system partition

I believe that shadow copy service, which is required for Windows backup, fails as it uses this 100MB partition. I thought I read that language packs, restore points, etc. consumed this partition.

I guess I could test this out. Let the DVD installer create the 100MB and 120GB-100MB partitions, delete the 100MB partition and install and try to run Windows backup.

 

[ArisVer]

RAID 0 is striping. Not sure how that will leave me with two copies of a boot drive.

Yeap my mistake. I meant RAID 1 (mirror). It will make your backups simple.

 

[Whisper2]

This TechNet article may provide the info you need: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd799232(v=ws.10).aspx. It is titled "Understanding Disk Partitions" and lists the rules for varying situations such as BIOS vs. UEFI, etc.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

ArisVer, I conducted a basic install on one SSD and let it create the 100MB System partition and the 120GB-100MB install partition. I then installed EaseUS (thanks for the suggestion) to resize and make a much larger (~400MB) System partition and finished the Windows installation.

RAID 1 will perform a mirroring function, this is true. But, my concern is the necessity of reinventing the Windows wheel, so to speak. This is my wife's at-home work PC. She wants to have a volatile environment where she can check email regardless of threat. In an infection takes place, she doesn't care about data loss as nothing is saved on this new PC.

From an administrative perspective, I just needed a way to quickly nuke & pave and RAID 1 will not do this. Once one drive is infected the other is, too. Thus, I'm using the second SSD as a clone of the first, but not actively connected.

Whisper2, thanks for that link. Much appreciated.