Thanks for the reply, R.C. Please see some of my replies in-line.

"R. C. White" wrote in message
...
Hi, Tom.

...is that new drive going to boot on its own,...

No. The "Boot" partition contains ALL of Windows. (It's all in the
C:\Windows folder tree.)

But the "System" partition is the one that tells the BIOS where to find
the Boot partition.

It is entirely possible for a single partition to be both "Boot" and
"System". That's the way it always was - by default - until Win7. And it
can still be that way if we plan for it and install Win7 with that in
mind. But when Win7 Setup.exe installs Win7 onto a "virgin" computer -
which is what an OEM does for computers that are sold with Win7
pre-installed - then Setup creates that "System Reserved" partition and
makes it the "System Partition". So if that small partition is deleted or
reformatted, the critical startup files are missing and the computer
cannot even start, much less find Win7's Boot partition.

I did a clean installation on my desktop of Win7, and it didn't create the
100MB partition. It was on a blank HDD, and I don't recall doing anything
special during the installation. I did use an upgrade DVD to do it; would
that possibly be the reason?

Wouldn't it be feasible, after deleting the partition, to boot from the
installation DVD and do a startup or MBR repair? I haven't done any of that
stuff for quite some time now (other than for friends or neighbors), but I
don't really miss it :-)

This System/Boot partitions dichotomy is not new; it goes back to at least
WinNT 4.0, which I first encountered in 1998 when I started dual-booting.
The specific contents of the System Partition changed from the
NTLDR/Boot.ini system, used from WinNT 4 through WinXP, to the BCD (Boot
Configuration Data) and bootmgr, beginning with Vista, and then added the
separate System Reserved partition in Win7. Even now, though, if we ADD
Win7 to a computer that already has Windows (XP, Vista, Win2K...)
installed, Setup will detect the existing installation - including the
existing System partition - and will just update the startup files on the
partition, rather than create the new System Reserved partition.

...

I'll quit here, Tom, since I see you already have several good answers.
But I had this much typed before the wife said let's go out to lunch...and
I hate to let it go to waste. Hope it helps. ;)

Never waste a lunch (or a wife's invitation) :-)

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP (2002-2010)
Windows Live Mail 2012 (Build 16.4.3503.0728)) in Win8 (RTM Ent Eval)



"SC Tom" wrote in message ...

I recently bought a new Acer Aspire V3 laptop that came with the Win7
64-bit
setup partition. I ran it, installed Win7, cleaned all the crap off I
didn't
want/need, and installed some of the programs I wanted on it (still more
to
go- that's an ongoing thing, IYKWIM). After I got things the way I wanted,
I
booted from my ATI CD to create an image of the whole drive, including the
hidden "PQService" recovery partition, the 100MB "System Reserved" one,
and
of course, my C: partition.

The question I have is, if I just created an image of the C: partition
without the other two partitions, and restored the C: to a new drive, is
that new drive going to boot on its own, or do you think I'll have to run
Startup Repair to do it? In Disk Management, the System Reserved partition
just says "Healthy (System, Active, Primary Partition)", whereas my C:
says
"Healthy (Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Primary Partition)". That leads me
to
believe that C: will boot on its own, but just thought I'd ask the opinion
of others here.

I haven't tried deleting the 100MB partition as per the instructions he

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=409

since 100MB one way or the other is not really taking a bite out of my
500GB
drive. If I get to the point where I need that 100MB, I think it'll be
time
for a new, larger drive :-)

TIA!
--
SC Tom