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Thread ID: 119979 2011-08-19 09:20:00 Setting up new hard drive. Driftwood (5551) Press F1
Post ID Timestamp Content User
1224510 2011-08-20 00:49:00 Windows 7 puts the hidden partition on regardless of the version when doing a fresh install - its a hidden partition that contains the repair and boot options if something goes wrong.

To quote MS
The 100MB partition is a system partition and contains boot files. Disk Manager will not allow you to remove this partition because removing this partition could cause the system to not boot.

While it can be removed, it can also cause problems if you do so.

If you alter partition sizes, you leave the 100MB alone, only alter the main partition.

The 100MB partition contains:

Map: Boot
Map: Recycle;bin
Map:System Volume Information

bootmgr
Bootsect.bak
wainuitech (129)
1224511 2011-08-20 01:07:00 Oh well, havent had probs yet. I had more probs with it than without it! Speedy Gonzales (78)
1224512 2011-08-20 01:41:00 My own Office PC doesn't have the 100MB partition, but thats because it used to dual boot with Vista. If you dual boot the partition doesn't get made. When Vista was removed it left W7.

There has been a couple of times when windows had problems I have had to put in the recovery CD to allow the boot files to repair.

From a fresh install, out of the countless W7's I have installed each and every one puts in the hidden partition.

Also some cloning software wont clone W7 correctly, they cant see that hidden partition, and thats why sometimes when starting from a clone, W7 wont boot till the repair CD is installed to fix the boot files.
wainuitech (129)
1224513 2011-08-20 07:44:00 It's not just Ultimate, I have only ever used windows 7 home premium OEM and it creates the partition during a fresh install. Even more annoying if you leave other hard drives connected during install it might decide to use one of those instead of the 100M partition and remove the drive letter from it. It's easy to fix the drive letter from windows disk management but I'm not sure what else it does on the drive as it makes it active and marks it as a system drive (but not boot).

I discovered this after doing a fresh install on my SSD, it has only one partition after install but another drive was changed as I mentioned above.

Best to connect only 1 hard drive during Installation of windows I'd say, annoying.
dugimodo (138)
1224514 2011-08-20 07:48:00 I remember ultimate saying something about it, but not Pro. I know internal card readers can stuff things up too. The last time I had one, I had to unplug it from the internal USB header. Or it'd screw up the letters once windows had been installed Speedy Gonzales (78)
1224515 2011-08-20 09:52:00 I have the 100MB partition on mine, and I triple-boot on that machine with 7, XP and Ubuntu. No problems here, yet... Agent_24 (57)
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