Clean Windows 7 Pro 64bit install... what is this "F" drive?

[JrFreak]

Clean install of Windows 7 Pro 64bit on my brand new Samsung SSD. I was about to hook up my external drive and noticed there was an "F" drive (199 MB size) with only 1 file on it... BOOTSECT.BAK (157MB in size).

What is this? Do I need it? If I do, can I reassign a new drive letter to it? I would like to use "F" for my external drive.

Thanks!

 

[danraies]

When you install a clean Windows it makes a small partition around 100mb-200mb to store system files and such. I don't really know what all goes on there, but that sounds like what that is. I have no idea why you can see it, though.

Is it possible that you installed windows and then installed windows again on that same drive and didn't clean up you partitions so that now there are two 200mb "system" partitions and the one you can see is from the last install? Check that in disk management. (Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Storage > Disk Management) If you see two small partitions in addition to a large C: partition then this is likely what happened.

 

[JrFreak]

Thanks. I've been googling this and haven't found much at all.

 

[geekapproved]

Anytime you install Win7 it makes a 200mb F drive and you can always see it.

 

[danraies]

Anytime you install Win7 it makes a 200mb F drive and you can always see it.

No, it doesn't - at least it shouldn't. It always makes a 100mb-200mb partition but according to Windows it is not assigned a drive letter and it can only be seen in disk management (as opposed to my computer).

 

[13thmonkey]

Anytime you install Win7 it makes a 200mb F drive and you can always see it.

you certainly cannot alwasy see it.

 

[13thmonkey]

No, it doesn't - at least it shouldn't. It always makes a 100mb-200mb partition but according to Windows it is not assigned a drive letter and it can only be seen in disk management (as opposed to my computer).

Correct

 

[d1rtyju1c3]

I agree, I have never seen it assign a drive letter to the system reserve partition.

Did you format and partition the drive before installing windows. Set your folder options so you can see hidden folders/files, uncheck the hide protected operating system files and see if there is anything on the drive that will tell you if it is the system reserve partion.

 

[13thmonkey]

I have seen it after I mucked around with BCD and tried to move from one drive to another.

 

[Onus]

Disconnect any memory card readers before you install Windows, otherwise each card slot will get a drive letter assigned to it, sometimes ahead of your actual boot drive.

 

[danraies]

If it is a stray partition from an old installation of windows then there should be no problem deleting it but make sure that is actually what's going on. In the future if you want to avoid this problem then when you install windows make sure to delete old partitions, repartition, and format.