# 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?


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## animal007uk (Dec 2, 2009)

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


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## 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.


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## 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.


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## pbmaster (Dec 3, 2009)

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


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## 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


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## 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


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## 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


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## 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?


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## 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.)


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## 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


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## 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.


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## 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?


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## 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)


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## 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!


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## THRiLL KiLL (Dec 4, 2009)

were you able to get it to work?


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## 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.


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