System Reserved Partition in another Disk?

Hi everyone,
Just as Title says, My System Reserved Partition is on Another Disk which is Hard drive. Should it not be on the C: Drive by default? I recently checked and found out that my System Reserved Partition is in another Disk/Drive which means if other drive fails then OS goes down along with it? Is there any way i can bring it back to C: drive/Disk?
Thank in Advance

PressF5 said:

Should it not be on the C: Drive by default?

Click to expand...

No.

(this is only for MBR disk)

The "System" partition on a Windows computer is where the files needed to "boot" the computer are located. It is normally the first partition on the first disk enumerated by the computer's BIOS. The "Boot" partition of a Windows computer contains the files for the Windows operating system.

If the System Reserved partition exists
- System Reserved partition (System, Active)
- Windows partition (Boot)

If the System Reserved partition does not exist
- Windows partition (System, Active, Boot)

The System Reserved partition and the Windows partition are not always on the same disk.

The System Reserved partition is not needed if the Windows partition is the active system partition.

Windows will not start if there is no active partition on the primary disk (either the System Reserved partition or the Windows partition).

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PressF5 said:

if other drive fails then OS goes down along with it? Is there any way i can bring it back to C: drive/Disk?

Click to expand...

If the System Reserved partition does not exist, then mark your Windows partition as active.

The primary disk can only have one active partition at a time. In Diskpart, setting a partition to active will set another partition to inactive. With the "detail partition" command, you can check whether the partition is active or not (Active: Yes/No).

- Boot the computer using the Windows 10/11 USB flash drive.
- On the first screen press SHIFT+F10 to bring up the command prompt.

diskpart
list volume
select volume # (replace # with the Windows partition number)
active (or detail partition)
exit

bcdboot x:\windows /s x: /f bios

- replace both "x" with the volume letter of the Windows partition

BCDBOOT copies the boot files from the Windows partition (from the Windows folder) to the Windows partition (to the Boot folder) and creates the Boot Configuration Data (BCD) store in the same partition (in the Boot folder).

If Windows does not start, you will need to access your BIOS settings and change the boot order of the drives.

edit:

The above instruction is for MBR disk only.

Unlike an MBR disk, a GPT disk does not have an active partition. Unlike BIOS, UEFI (not Legacy boot via CSM) does not rely on boot sectors, UEFI system loads the boot loader directly from the EFI system partition.

PressF5 said:

Should it not be on the C: Drive

Click to expand...

It doesn't have to be, but it should be. And you are very correct that if drive 0 fails, Windows will not boot.

The System Reserved Partition is a partition dedicated to storing the Boot Manager, Boot Configuration Data, and critical BitLocker files.We always advise to anyone installing windows that all other drives be disconnected during the process. If you do not, it is common for this partition to end up on the wrong drive. With GPT drives WIndows is designed to install that partition on the first drive it SEES during the install process. In this case drrive 0. A clone gone wrong can also cause this same issue.

First, I'll answer your question about moving it.
In order to move that partition, it will be necessary for you to reduce your active windows partition to free up unallocated space for this system reserved partition. Although the system reserved partition can be created anywhere on your system drive, it is normal for it to be be at the beginning of the drive to the left of C: partition

It is up to you where on your system drive you want to create the necessary unallocated space.
The reason I would choose to create this partiton before C partition is Windows is constantly reducing C to create additional space for the recovery partition and I wouldn't want to chance that this critical partition might ever be affected by that..

I strongly caution you to backup your system first. Be very careful. Attempt at your own risk.

If you want to create unallocated space at the end of your system partition, you can use disk management to reduce the size of C: partition.

If you want the system reserved partition to be at the beginning to the left of C: you can use minitool bootablle.
Download Minitool Bootable here Bootable Partition Manager| MiniTool Partition Wizard Bootable Edition

Once you free up the unallocated space, these instructions tell you how to use Minitool to move the system reserved partition from one drive to another.
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ANOTHER OPTION and what I would do., I wouldn't take any chances as I'm a "better safe than sorry" kind of gal.
I would first protect my butt and use imaging software to image my system. For whatever backup/imaging software you use, create its recovery usb drive. Test that you are able to boot from that usb drive before proceeding.

Then disconnect drive 0 and reinstall windows allowing it to partitition the system drive correctly. You do not have to set up windows, Just install it. All you want out of the install is proper partitioning.

I would then boot from my backup software recovery usb drive and restore only the C partition from the image you created.
The computer will not boot at this point. Certain backup softwares allow you to fix boot. If yours does not, your can use a windows repair/installation drive to do a startup repair.

On the outside chance a startup repair does not work you will have to resort to repairing the EFI bootloader manually using diskpart/bootrec commands as in this Dell article. See the section marked for Windows 11. However, this same scenario applies if you something goes haywire when moving the partition in the first process above as well.

In either of the 2 scenarios, once you can successfully boot, reconnect your drive 0 and use disk management to remove the old system reserved partition on drive 0

Windows 10 installed on MBR disk (BIOS/MBR installation).

aubergine said:

diskpart
list volume
select volume # (replace # with the Windows partition number)
active (or detail partition)
exit

bcdboot x:\windows /s x: /f bios

- replace both "x" with the volume letter of the Windows partition

Click to expand...