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When I reinstalled W7, I let the installer delete the existing 100GB partition and recreate a new primary partition, then a 100MB primary partition called "System reserved", and a 99.9GB primary partition were created. I installed W7 on the 99.9GB partition and everything looked OK. I used in the past W7's built-in utility or third party disk utilities, no such extra partition was automatically created and have not seen any problem. I wonder in what circumstance(s) that extra 100MB partition is required.

Bitlocker and bootable GPT disks.

Ryu Connor wrote:

Bitlocker and bootable GPT disks.

How the above relates to my question?

That's what the 100MB is used for. Also, it's used for the recovery manager if I remember right.

Here's some more info (and how to remove it, if you insist on dong so -- which would be a mistake, IMO).

CampinCarl wrote:

That's what the 100MB is used for. Also, it's used for the recovery manager if I remember right.

I have been using BitLocker quite a while without such extra partition. I will not be using GPT any time soon.

It's more trouble than 100MB is worth to get rid of it. Best leave it alone.

UberGerbil wrote:

Here's some more info (and how to remove it, if you insist on dong so -- which would be a mistake, IMO).

Thanks for the info. I am going to get rid of it because it takes one of the four primary partitions being maximum allowed.

churin wrote:

UberGerbil wrote:

Here's some more info (and how to remove it, if you insist on dong so -- which would be a mistake, IMO).

Thanks for the info. I am going to get rid of it because it takes one of the four primary partitions being maximum allowed.

We had a new HP laptop come in at the office recently. ALL FOUR primary partitions were already in use - System reserved, Win7, HP system recovery, and HP diagnostic tools. WTF? No primary partition left to install Linux on (we wanted to dual-boot it). We ended up nuking the HP diagnostics partition.

just brew it! wrote:

churin wrote:

UberGerbil wrote:

Here's some more info (and how to remove it, if you insist on dong so -- which would be a mistake, IMO).

Thanks for the info. I am going to get rid of it because it takes one of the four primary partitions being maximum allowed.

We had a new HP laptop come in at the office recently. ALL FOUR primary partitions were already in use - System reserved, Win7, HP system recovery, and HP diagnostic tools. WTF? No primary partition left to install Linux on (we wanted to dual-boot it). We ended up nuking the HP diagnostics partition.

You probably could do away with the HP system recovery partition as well, since the native Win7 stuff is likely to work better (though there may be a contractual support reason to hang onto it if you need to do a complete reinstall and don't have a volume license for Windows).

HP's software arm has been completely off the rails for some time now. Between redundant crap like this and 1GB printer "drivers" the less HP software on your system the better it is likely to run.

churin wrote:

CampinCarl wrote:

That's what the 100MB is used for. Also, it's used for the recovery manager if I remember right.

I have been using BitLocker quite a while without such extra partition. I will not be using GPT any time soon.

Bitlocker only requires it for the bootdisk.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766295(WS.10).aspx#BKMK_S1

It's a chicken and egg aspect. The OS loader is a very simple bootstrap process and doesn't know how to decrypt the files.

Ryu Connor wrote:

churin wrote:

CampinCarl wrote:

That's what the 100MB is used for. Also, it's used for the recovery manager if I remember right.

I have been using BitLocker quite a while without such extra partition. I will not be using GPT any time soon.

Bitlocker only requires it for the bootdisk.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766295(WS.10).aspx#BKMK_S1

It's a chicken and egg aspect. The OS loader is a very simple bootstrap process and doesn't know how to decrypt the files.

Thanks for the info. I have been using Bitlocker to encrypt USB memories only and never thought of encrypting os boot drive.