Secondary HDD marked as System and Active!

[Persheis]

Hello all!

I have an issue with my newly installed Windows 8.1 machine.
This PC has survived the flow of time, holding a 62 GB Hitachi drive from ages ago and running Windows 7 until now, when I purchased a new HDD and decided to upgrade to Windows 8.1 once and for all.

In this computer, I had 2 drives, one (primary) holding Windows 7, and the other a 500GB Maxtor drive with data and multimedia (storage only).

So, I went ahead, left the storage drive connected, and disconnected the C: drive (the one with the windows 7 installation) and set up the new drive in its place. Then, ran the bootable disk and finished the install process with no hiccups, EXCEPT for one strange issue...

As soon as the computer booted up, I am offered a dual boot with Windows 7 (altough my C drive is disconnected, and the drive remaining there is a storage-only drive).

Just to check the state of the system, I looked at the Disk management utility... and I'm greeted with a strange behaviour.
My main, new drive (partitioned in 2, C: and D is running without problems. However, in C:'s details, there is no "System" attribute.

Looking below, you can see the reason. One of the partitions of my secondary drive (the one marked as E has both the System and Active attribute, while containing only data.
I can't format this drive as a result, and can't reuse it for storage once again.

Now, I wanted to know how to rectify this issue fast and painfully, so I don't get offered a non-existant dual boot at startup, and so I can format this whole drive, reunite it as one partition, and reuse it as a storage drive for media files (the remaining free space to the right was another partition in this drive, erased and formatted correctly and without hassle).

Help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

 

[USAFRet]

2 drives connected, you installed Windows 7. Ok, so far so good
You removed the C drive and swapped it out with a new one, and installed Windows 8.1

You are presented with 2 options to boot from, even though there is only the one OS, Win 8.1

Yes. This is exactly what will happen....🙁

Why? Installing Win 7 or 8.1 with 2 drives connected, the System Reserved partition is placed on the second drive. (Some genius at MS thought this was a good idea)
So...that boot info still has the selection for Windows 7, along with the new Windows 8.1

How to fix?
Disconnect the second drive.
Put your Win 8.1 DVD in, and do Repair.
I think this will fix the issue, and have the System Reserved partition directly on your chosen boot drive.

 

[Persheis]

2 drives connected, you installed Windows 7. Ok, so far so good
You removed the C drive and swapped it out with a new one, and installed Windows 8.1

You are presented with 2 options to boot from, even though there is only the one OS, Win 8.1

Yes. This is exactly what will happen....🙁

Why? Installing Win 7 or 8.1 with 2 drives connected, the System Reserved partition is placed on the second drive. (Some genius at MS thought this was a good idea)
So...that boot info still has the selection for Windows 7, along with the new Windows 8.1

How to fix?
Disconnect the second drive.
Put your Win 8.1 DVD in, and do Repair.
I think this will fix the issue, and have the System Reserved partition directly on your chosen boot drive.

Thanks, I'll try it right away and get back with the results. 😀

 

[Eggz]

Yeah, you can only install Win 8.1 properly with the main drive installed. Disconnect everything else or else it will get confused. I'd just do a fresh installation from bootable media if I were you. Then transfer all your stuff from the storage drive onto a backup. From there, format the storage drive fresh and copy everything back. It's be like a new drive that's not tied to any particular version of Windows.