Recently I had an old server with a FAT32 system reserved partition and a bunch of extra partitions. I have already moved all the data off the server and it was ready for decommissioning. Before, I did this I wanted to go ahead and remove all these old partitions and just leave the C: Drive with the Windows installation then rebuild the System Reserved partition as NTFS as an exercise. Many backup programs have issues doing block level images with FAT32 partitions OR you need to do a physical to virtual setup. For me, I wanted to decommission the hardware but be able to spin up this server in a virtual environment if needed.
- Boot into your partition manager of choice (I used Parted Magic https://partedmagic.com/) - GParted
- Delete extra partitions including the old FAT32 system partition (These all should be very small between 100 MB and up to 2 GB)
- Create new NTFS partition with 512 MB of space and label it System Reserved
- Shutdown
example output:
- Launch Windows 10 Install disc / usb
- Shift+F10 once you see language select to bring up command prompt
- Launch "DISKPART"
- select volume with 512MB (ex: select vol 0)
- assign letter=G: (or any letter that isn't taken that is NOT C:)
- exit OR If Windows operating system is NOT on C:
- select volume with windows installation on it
- assign letter=C:
- exit
diskpart select disk 0 list vol select vol 0 <---500 MB Partition assign letter=G: select vol 1 <--- Large Partition with Windows Install on it assign letter=C: exitPartitions are done - now time to fix problems with the "type" of partition - By forcing all paritions to be NTFS NT60bootsect.exe /nt60 all /force
bcdboot c:\Windows /s G: /f ALL
bootrec /scanos <---Verify it sees the windows install bootrec /fixmbr bootrec /fixboot <----Pick the installation will mirror /scanos bootrec /rebuildbcd
