Windows 7 Clean Reinstallation gone wrong. SSD on Disk 1.

[Nunusaur]

Hello hello,

I urgently need help, so if anybody could provide some, I'd forever be grateful!

So I'd gotten a guy to build a PC for me sometime in december 2012, was quite expensive too. I have two hard drives, one's an SSD (for OS), and another was a WD Black Caviar (for storage). Recently, my PC had gotten slow so I decided to do a clean reinstall. When I was on the installation screen, it said:
Disk 0 Partition 1: 2TB
Disk 1 Partition 1: System Reserved
Disk 1 Partition 2: System

I deleted Disk 1 Partition 1: System Reserved and Disk 1 Partition 2: System. It turned into one unallocated disk and I formatted it, then installed Windows 7 on it. It went wrong though. This is what it looks like now:



System Reserved partition wasn't recreated, and my 2TB storage hard drive shows as "System, Active". Also, I've noticed that the guy has connected my 2TB Hard Drive to SATA Port 1 since it shows as Disk 0. My SSD shows as Disk 1. Shouldn't it be the other way around? May be that is why I'm having issues doing a clean reinstall. It's strange because previously, the System Reserved partition was on Disk 1. I don't want to open up my CPU and unplug my 2TB Hard Drive, I've never done it before and don't want to end up messing up anything.

Is there any other way around this? And if not, should I take my PC to the guy and make a complaint? I'm not sure if I should have to pay another 75 euros for his mistake... Or is it not his fault? I'm quite clueless when it comes to Hardware, so any help would be greatly appreciated! Thank you for your time.

[ZephyrStar]

When you say it went wrong, what do you mean went wrong?
Windows installed correctly, right?
System reserved is generally created by the installation at the time of installation, I bet if you went back and tried it all over again you'd find that windows had re-created those two partitions again.
The position of the SATA ports/devices does not matter, unless one is faster than the other (3.0gb/s vs 6.0gb/s) and you are having some kind of speed issue.

If you really want to try again, I would suggest opening up the box, unplugging the SATA data cables of both drives, plug the SSD into port 1, and reinstall windows on it.
Then when that's done, plug your data drive cable back in to the next available port.
That's only if you want to get super anal with it.
And just be careful, you're not going to destroy your system by unplugging and plugging some cables. Just be gentle and take it easy and it'll be fine.

[Nunusaur]

Windows seems to be working fine, but for some strange reason, while I was reinstalling some drives (such as NVIDIA, etc), it installed some of the files on my storage hard drive. And my storage hard drive also shows as "System, Active", shouldn't that be for System Reserved partition? I wanted my 2TB Hard drive to be completely clean and only contain my storage files, not sure why it's labeled as "System, Active". I personally don't want to touch any wires because I'm completely clueless and inexperienced, might try it on an older PC first if I have to. Is there any other way to work around it, though? What if I deleted my 2TB Hard Drive on the Installation screen, and then did a clean reinstallation on my SSD again, then reformatted my 2TB Hard Drive once that's done? No files would be installed on an unallocated disk if I deleted my 2TB Hard drive, right? Sorry if that sounds stupid, as I said earlier - I'm completely clueless when it comes to hardware!

Thank you for replying and taking the time out to help!

[Pwolf]

I think you mucked it up a bit when you reinstalled win7. The system active partition should be the 100mb system reserved one, not on your 2TB drive. It shouldn't affect anything but if something were to happen to that drive, you could be SOL as far as booting up the system again...

I would suggest, assuming there's nothing on the two disks worth keeping, deleting all the partitions and then before reinstalling Windows 7, unplugging the sata cable from the 2tb drive (when the system is turned off of course). Don't worry about the power cable. After you've reinstalled windows, you can shut the system off and then plug the 2tb drive back in and reformat it properly.

When installing Windows 7, i'd make sure to do a "Custom" install so you can select the disk and delete any hidden partitions that might be on it. After that, you just select the disk and tell Windows to install. It should then partition everything for you correctly.

[ngsilver]

Yeah, what Pwolf said. It's always best when doing a fresh install to only have the disk that will be your system drive actually plugged in to be sure that all system items gets installed on the system disk and not any data drives. Also, the reason the system partition was not created is because you partitioned the system disk yourself rather then letting windows do it for you.

So, like pwolf said, unplug your 2tb drive (just the sata cable is fine, there is also no need to change which port on the motherboard it's connected to unless you really care about disk order in disk management,) boot into setup, do a custom install and delete all partitions on the SSD and select the unpartitioned space on that drive for windows to install to. Setup will then create the system partition as expected and then use the rest of the drive as the system volume and you'll be all set. After install and first boot into windows itself then it's safe (after you power down of course) to plug the sata cable back into the 2TB drive and power back on again. Then the 2TB drive should no longer be marked as system active, however if it still is, just remove the system active flag from the drive (you'll have to use diskpart for that.)

[ZephyrStar]

Also, don't be too concerned about playing with the wires. There's really nothing to it, you just have to be gentle.
Please watch this, it should help you get an understanding of how to muck around inside your computer.
It's a video describing how to install a hard drive, but you should be able to see how it works.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3a9n7G4q30M

I would also suggest doing what Pwolf recommended, and just unplug the SATA cable from the 2TB until after you've formatted your SSD and reinstalled windows on it. That'll insure that the proper partitions go onto the SSD and don't end up on the 2TB.

[Nunusaur]

I apologize for the late response, but I'd like to thank you all so so much for the help - it's saved me from wasting money and time. Seriously, thank you!