Windows 7, 8, and 10 create a special “ System Reserved ” partition when you install them on a clean disk. Windows doesn’t normally assign a drive letter to these partitions, so you’ll only see them when you use Disk Management or similar utility. The System Reserved partition was introduced with Windows 7, so you won’t find it on previous versions of Windows. The partition is also created on Windows Serer 2008 R2 and newer Server versions of Windows. What Does the System Reserved Partition Do? The System Reserved partition contains two important things: The Boot Manager and Boot Configuration Data: When your computer starts, the Windows Boot Manager reads the boot data from the Boot Configuration Data (BCD) Store. Your computer starts the boot loader off of the System Reserved partition, which in turn starts Windows from your system drive. The startup files used for BitLocker Drive Encryption: If you ever decide to enc...
