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Combine Windows System Partition and Boot Partition

This operation means to create boot files for the C drive as well as to deploy them in C drive. Furthermore, this command can also help you create boot files into another partition and make that partition as System.

Updated on 2018-01-07

What are system partition and boot partition

Since Windows Vista, the new generation Windows Operating system adopts a new way to be loaded, the two boot filesNTLDR/Boot.iniin Windows XP were replaced byBootmgr/BCD, which help users manage the boot process and the boot menu before Windows loading animation appears, and right after computer hardware self-test.

System partition- Which contains the 2 boot filesBootmgrandBCD.
Boot partition- Where all Windows files are located, including Windows folder, User folder and Program folder etc.

One physical partition can play a role of System and Boot together. But what more common seen is, a separate System partition which is 100MB-200MB around in size lays on left hand side of a boot partition. Or for a multiple OS configuration, even an individual System partition on another physical hard drive is possible. Like the picture below.

The screenshot of Windows disk management

Drive D is the system partition, while Drive C is the boot partition. In this case, Disk 0 and 1 are both required to be connected for a normal Windows loading process. This might be inconvenient when Disk 0 needs to be used for a different purpose or intends to be disconnected. Combining System and Boot partitions, or considered as moving System partition to disk 1, is an efficient solution to free Disk 0 in this case.

This article tells how to achieve that with 3 simple steps.

Caution:
1.下面的步骤需要certain computer knowledge to be finished, any mis-operation would possibly result in system failure. So please make sure every step is made exactly as this article guides.
2. Only if system and boot partitions are on a basic drive, this method works. For a GPT system hard drive, EFI system partition and boot partition cannot be combined.

1.Create new boot files for partition Cwith Windows bcdboot command. It is a very easy to use command that you just need to specify for which operation system you want to create the boot files.

Create new boot files for partition C

This operation means to create boot files for the C drive as well as to deploy them in C drive. Furthermore, this command can also help you create boot files into another partition and make that partition as System. The full command then suppose to be:

bcdboot c:\windows /s x:

X is the target partition's drive letter.

2. Set partition C as an active partition. Windows only tries to findbootmgrfile from an active partition on a MBR based hard drive, so the second step is to set partition C as active withDiskpartcommand. Below is a guide picture with just 4 minor steps. Please double check if the correct partition has been selected before runningActivecommand at last.

Set partition C as an active partition

3.Modify boot order in BIOS/UEFIto make sure Disk 1 is in the first location since next boot. Search in Google will give you a lot of tutorials how to do this for a particular motherboard.

After all the steps, the original Disk0 can be removed, and now in Windows, current Windows Disk Management should look like:

Modify boot order in BIOS/UEFI

If you still have any questions to finish the steps, please feel free to contactEaseUS Support Team.

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