Moving "system" flag to other partition

vinnie2k

Member
Hello,

I am very glad I found this forum, thanks to everyone who already posted advice I could follow :joy:

I am using Windows 7 Home Edition on drive C; I installed it after installing the RC on (now) drive Z. You can see where I am going... :grinning:

Drives C and Z are on the same hard drive.

C is Boot, Crash Dump and Logical Drive.
Z is System, Active, Primary Partition.

Me no like that :rage:

I'd like C to be Active and System.

Do I need to re-install W7 on C? But how do I make it the primary partition?

Thanks for any help.
 
Computer management might be able to help you. Click start and search for it, but you might want to wait until someone who know more than I to help you before doing that.
 
There are several ways to do it.

EITHER

Boot the 7 dvd and install onto the Primary, Active partition - you will get a windows.old folder with the existing contents of the partition inside - you can delete that with disk cleanup. You will also have an entry in the boot menu for the 7 install on the logical drive - delete the entry in msconfig ( or with easybcd) and you can then use Disk Management to format/delete the logical drive.

OR

(i) Boot into 7 on C. Open an elevated command and type:

bcdboot c:\windows /s c:

then press enter.

close cmd prompt.

(ii) Make sure C is smaller than Z - shrink C in Disk Management if necessary. Leave enough space on C to fit a backup image ( about the same again as the used space on C ).

(iii) Download and install Macrium Reflect Free - make an image of C - store it on C.

Macrium Reflect FREE Edition - Information and download

(iv) Use Macrium to restore the image to Z - select Active Primary partition when it gives you the options.

(v) You will then be able to boot into the newly restored 7 on Z. Delete the boot menu entry for the logical drive, then delete/format the logical drive.

That should take 20 - 30 mins in total ( depending how much data you have on the logical drive )

Hope it helps.
 
It's a logical drive.

A quicker way - use the free Partition Wizard to convert the Logical to Primary, then use use Easybcd 2.0 "Change boot drive", which will run bcdboot, bootsect and mark the target active for you.
 
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Ouch. Thanks for spotting that, it would've been bad to run those steps with a logical drive!!

I need to add a check for that, I think... because the results could otherwise be disastrous.
 
I just tried it - and Diskpart wouldn't play - so no danger from that ( I assume you are using Diskpart for that?)


DISKPART> sel vol g

Volume 4 is the selected volume.

DISKPART> act

Virtual Disk Service error:
The specified partition type is not valid for this operation.

After running "Change Boot Drive", I noticed the bcd entry created on the Target is for the current System partition.
 
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