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Prevent Windows 7 creating a small separate System partition

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Prevent Windows 7 creating a small separate System partition

Postby Grav!ty » Sun Jan 11, 2009 12:27 pm

See Prevent Windows 7 creating a small separate System partition

HooWee! I think I just discovered that if one pre-creates and pre-formats the Windows 7 installation drive/partition and then on running Windows 7 setup, select the partition and press Next, this small separate System partition is NOT created. I need to do it again to be able to verify that.

There was no dialogue box stating that additional partitions "might" be created.

OK that partition is no big deal really but what bugs me on my system anyway, is the creation of the tiny 1 MB unallocated space "partitions" variously at the front, back and both front and back of my Windows 7 hard drive...when it's a dedicated hard drive and with no other operating system installed on that computer
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Re: Prevent Windows 7 creating a small separate System partition

Postby yeshuas » Sun Jan 11, 2009 3:28 pm

I wonder if this will work when installing to a Raid 0 :blink
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Re: Prevent Windows 7 creating a small separate System partition

Postby Grav!ty » Sun Jan 11, 2009 3:41 pm

yeshuas wrote:I wonder if this will work when installing to a Raid 0 :blink


I don't see why not, provided you can pre-create and pre-format the RAID0 drive :yesnod: Something I haven't yet tried is to create the partition and format it from Windows XP setup and then F3 exit from setup. That usually leaves what one has done so far intact.
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Re: Prevent Windows 7 creating a small separate System partition

Postby shreader » Sun Jan 11, 2009 4:05 pm

If one deletes the contents of this small partition will Win7 still boot?

Just wondering as if it does one can rename & expand it then use it for something else like local storage.
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Re: Prevent Windows 7 creating a small separate System partition

Postby Grav!ty » Sun Jan 11, 2009 4:16 pm

shreader wrote:If one deletes the contents of this small partition will Win7 still boot?

Just wondering as if it does one can rename & expand it then use it for something else like local storage.


It's the System partition so I don't think so.

Actually having it in the first place is not really any major problem and come to think of it, having the boot system files on a hidden partition could be a very good idea. It does cause issues when trying to install another OS though, unless a drive letter is allocated first so that it's visible to the second OS installed.
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Re: Prevent Windows 7 creating a small separate System partition

Postby imnuts » Sun Jan 11, 2009 4:39 pm

I don't have any small system partition on my main system where I had the partitions already laid out. I even formatted the partition that I installed Windows 7 to during setup. However, I do have the small partition on the laptop I installed it on where I deleted all previous partitions and then created a new one in setup.
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Re: Prevent Windows 7 creating a small separate System partition

Postby Grav!ty » Sun Jan 11, 2009 4:57 pm

imnuts wrote:I don't have any small system partition on my main system where I had the partitions already laid out. I even formatted the partition that I installed Windows 7 to during setup. However, I do have the small partition on the laptop I installed it on where I deleted all previous partitions and then created a new one in setup.


That small System partition is only created if one installs Windows 7 on it's own to it's own hard drive. It is not created if there is already a System partition on the PC to which it is installed. It can be prevented from being created if a partition/drive is pre-created and pre-formatted before running Windows 7 setup. It would be very interesting to know if there is behavior that diverges from what I've mentioned :yesnod:
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Re: Prevent Windows 7 creating a small separate System partition

Postby yeshuas » Sun Jan 11, 2009 6:07 pm

I tried it with a pre-created Raid and it still created the 200MB partiton

I checked my Windows Experience and with Raid 0 it sucks 3.0 which does not make sense, so I am going to delete and start over to see what I get.

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Re: Prevent Windows 7 creating a small separate System partition

Postby Grav!ty » Sun Jan 11, 2009 6:09 pm

yeshuas wrote:I tried it with a pre-created Raid and it still created the 200MB partiton

I checked my Windows Experience and with Raid 0 it sucks 3.0 which does not make sense, so I am going to delete and start over to see what I get.

Nothing ventured nothing gained!!!!!!!!!


If you can pre-format the partition too I think you'll avoid it :yesnod:
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Re: Prevent Windows 7 creating a small separate System partition

Postby NT50 » Wed Apr 29, 2009 8:15 pm

I'm a little late on this one but what I did to overcome the small 20meg partition was I used Magic GParted and setup my partitions that way. I did not format them or anything. I then installed Win7 with ease and no creation of the small partition.
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