The wrong drive is marked as "system"

Jenesis · Dec 2, 2009

The wrong drive is marked as "system" [Solved]

I recently reformatted my PC and installed Windows 7. I have four drives. Windows is installed on C:, and I also have M: and V: as storage drives (B: is an external drive). However, somehow although C: is the boot drive it managed to mark M: as the system drive. This is causing a few problems with the Windows 7 backup feature as it automatically makes a backup of both C: and the System drive, and it's using up a lot of space on the backup drive. See the screenshot below to see what I mean.

How do I make C: the System drive?

Steve-007UK · Dec 2, 2009

i think its just windows 7 as my disks all look messed up to.

Espera · Dec 3, 2009

Dunno.

I had trouble installing Windows once because I had a multi-card reader that screwed up the OS install and windows installed on "I" drive instead.

Best I can offer is remove all external drives and any Multi-card readers if you have them then reinstall the OS.

newtekie1 · Dec 3, 2009

Unplug all the drives but the C drive, then boot to the Win7 disk and run the startup repair option. It should set the drive as the system drive. Then boot back into Win7. Then shut the machine down and connect the other drives.

pbmaster · Dec 3, 2009

This was the most common thing I forgot to do when I was working at the computer shop. System repair!!

THRiLL KiLL · Dec 3, 2009

or another thing is to get to a dos command (from windows repair)

and type:

diskpart

then when you get the diskpart prompt type:

list volume

once you see your os drive type:

select volume 1 (or what ever number it is)

then type:

active

then reboot and all should be good

Jenesis · Dec 3, 2009

Unfortunately my PC now won't boot at all. It says "BOOTMGR is missing" at bootup. I tried to run the startup repair from the Win7 disk, and that didn't work (as BOOTMGR was missing). I then tried the command-line method, and that didn't work either - when I rebooted, with just the C: drive plugged in (then with all three drives plugged in, just in case) it still said BOOTMGR is missing. Help

THRiLL KiLL · Dec 3, 2009

do you know what drive the boot loader files are on? as that drive is the one that needs to be marked as active, so the os knows where to boot from

Jenesis · Dec 3, 2009

THRiLL KiLL said:
do you know what drive the boot loader files are on? as that drive is the one that needs to be marked as active, so the os knows where to boot from

I assumed they were on drive C:. Naturally, Windoze has gone against the logical course of action and has placed the boot loader files on drive M:. Thanks for the tip, I made M: the "active" partition in DISKPART and my PC is now booting again.

Unfortunately my original problem remains, M: is still marked as the System drive. Is reinstalling the OS my only option?

newtekie1 · Dec 3, 2009

Again, remove all the drives but C, and run the Win7 startup repair. You might have to run it two or three times before it finally does everything to get the proper drive set as the boot drive(I usually have to run it at least twice before it will boot properly.)

THRiLL KiLL · Dec 3, 2009

Jenesis said:
I assumed they were on drive C:. Naturally, Windoze has gone against the logical course of action and has placed the boot loader files on drive M:. Thanks for the tip, I made M: the "active" partition in DISKPART and my PC is now booting again.

Unfortunately my original problem remains, M: is still marked as the System drive. Is reinstalling the OS my only option?

quick question for you, is there any reason why you would need to have a diffrent drive marked as system?

is this for the backup utility built into vista / 2008?

if so:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/944530

also a drive may be marked as system if you have the page file set to reside there.

If you need help finding that, give me the os and i can tell you how to get there

Jenesis · Dec 3, 2009

newtekie1 said:
Again, remove all the drives but C, and run the Win7 startup repair. You might have to run it two or three times before it finally does everything to get the proper drive set as the boot drive(I usually have to run it at least twice before it will boot properly.)

Thank you, I didn't know running the Startup Repair more than once would help, but it did. For the record, I had to run it three times before it successfully rebooted with C: as the system drive.

THRiLL KiLL said:
quick question for you, is there any reason why you would need to have a diffrent drive marked as system?

Yes!

Windows 7 has a backup feature, and in the backup it makes a disk image of the C: drive and the System drive. If they are one and the same then all is good, but there is no way to deselect the System drive for backup, and in my case the backup was copying both C: and M: to the backup drive and I didn't have enough space.

THRiLL KiLL · Dec 3, 2009

i dont know if u saw my last post as i edited it, but what drive has the page file on it?

THRiLL KiLL · Dec 3, 2009

here ya go. this should fix things for you:

First, set the pc to be able to show hidden and system files if you haven't done so already.

Copy the bootmgr file from M: to C: (both root)
Copy the boot folder from M: to C: (both root) and tell it to skip over copying bcd and bcd.log files when it asks.

Then open an elevated command prompt. Copy and paste this command, then hit enter:

bcdedit /export C:\boot

When that's done, check C:\boot to see if bcd is now in it.

If it is, reboot to bios and make C: the first boot device instead of M: drive.

Reboot to Windows and check disk management. C: should now be the system drive and you're done

you may also need to make the c drive the active disk (just follow my diskpart instructions)

Jenesis · Dec 3, 2009

From your new post: The page file is on C:. (Or rather, it is now, I don't know where it was when M: was the system drive...)

Also, the C drive is the system drive now, I had to run startup repair 3 times but that seemed to fix it. C is also marked as active. Everything is working and the backup is only copying C, like I want it to!

THRiLL KiLL · Dec 4, 2009

were you able to get it to work?

Jenesis · Dec 5, 2009

Yes, it works. I just had to run startup repair three times (with only C: plugged in, for the record) to repair the boot sector and mark it as the system drive.

System Name	The Jenesis Device
Processor	AMD Athlon x64 X2 5200+ 2.6 GHz
Motherboard	MSI K9N Diamond nForce 590
Cooling	Akasa Evo w/ 2 fans, blue LEDs
Memory	4GB 667MHz
Video Card(s)	Innovision 320MB 8800GTS OC Edition
Storage	500GB SATA Western Digital, 2 x 250GB SATA Maxtor
Display(s)	19" Widescreen HP w19ev
Case	XClio A380 Twin Engine
Audio Device(s)	Creative Audigy SE, Logitech 5.1 Surround Speakers
Power Supply	Corsair HX620W Modular PSU
Software	Vista Ultimate x64, Photoshop CS2, MathCAD 13, MS Office 2007

System Name	PC-Chips
Processor	Ryzen 5 5600x
Motherboard	Asus ROG Strix B550-F Gaming.
Cooling	Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE CPU Air Cooler 6 heat pipes.
Memory	Patriot Viper 32gig dual channel 3600mhz
Video Card(s)	PowerColor HellHound RX 7900 GRE OC
Storage	2X Samsung 860 EVO SSD's 500gig / 2TB crucial P3-NVME / WD-BLUE SN550 1TB M.2 / SP A55 512gig
Display(s)	Panasonic 40-inch 4k TV
Case	Modded NZXT H510
Audio Device(s)	Realtek S1220A - Yamaha A-S501 AMP - 4 x Wharfedale diamond 9.1 speakers - Wharfedale SW150 sub
Power Supply	EVGA SuperNOVA G6 750W 80+ Gold
Mouse	Some cheap wireless thing
Keyboard	Razer Cynosa lite
VR HMD	Oculus Quest 2 128gig version
Software	Windows 11 pro 64bit

Processor	Intel Core i7 10850K@5.2GHz
Motherboard	AsRock Z470 Taichi
Cooling	Corsair H115i Pro w/ Noctua NF-A14 Fans
Memory	32GB DDR4-3600
Video Card(s)	RTX 2070 Super
Storage	500GB SX8200 Pro + 8TB with 1TB SSD Cache
Display(s)	Acer Nitro VG280K 4K 28"
Case	Fractal Design Define S
Audio Device(s)	Onboard is good enough for me
Power Supply	eVGA SuperNOVA 1000w G3
Software	Windows 10 Pro x64

Processor	AMD Phenom II 955
Motherboard	Asus Crosshair III Formula
Cooling	Cooler Master V8 CPU cooler, 120 mm and 200 mm exhaust, 3 x 120 mm intake
Memory	4 GB OCZ DDR3 1600
Video Card(s)	Sapphire Radeon HD 4890
Storage	Western Digital 500 GB Blacks in RAID 0/ Wesdtern Digital SE16 250 GB
Display(s)	Acer 19" widescreen
Case	Antec Nine Hundred
Audio Device(s)	Supreme X-Fi
Power Supply	Seasonic M12 SS-700HM
Software	Windows Vista Home Premium x64 SP2
Benchmark Scores	3dMark 03-~62k 3dMark 05-~22k 3dMark 06-18268

Processor	Intel Xeon x5660 (4.2ghz)
Motherboard	Gigabyte X58A-UD3R
Cooling	Corsair H100
Memory	24gb (6x 4gb DDR3 1600) Kingston Hyperx
Video Card(s)	XFX Black r290x 4gb ddr5 OC
Storage	6x 2tb 64mb WD drives, Patriot Pyro sandforce2 drive ,intel 180gb ssd
Display(s)	HP w2558hc
Case	Corsair Carbine 500r
Audio Device(s)	X-Fi Pro Fatality
Power Supply	XFX 750 watt
Mouse	Thermaltake Theron ee Sports+
Keyboard	Corsair Vengence k70 RGB Cherry Red
Software	Windows 8.1 x64

The wrong drive is marked as "system"

Jenesis

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Steve-007UK

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newtekie1

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