The secret of Windows 7 self-built hidden partitions

Windows 7 users, after the installation is complete, right-click Computer Management to open Disk Manager. You can see that there is a hidden partition of size 100MB or 200MB before the system partition (usually C partition). Special note: The size of this hidden partition is in Wind

Windows 7 users, right after the installation is done, right click on the computer — Manage — Open Disk Manager, you can see that there is a size before the system partition (usually C partition) It is a hidden partition of 100MB or 200MB.

Windows 7

Special Note: The size of the hidden partition is different in each version of Windows7. In the bate version of Windows 7, the hidden partition is 200M. From the RC version of Windows 7 and later versions, the hidden partition size is changed to 100MB, but in any case, the effect is the same. During the Windows 7 installation process, it will first create a hidden partition of about 100M at the beginning of the disk, and then install Windows 7 in another partition.

Let's take a closer look:

1, the partition status

The partition is formatted as NTFS, no disk label There is also no drive letter assigned, and its disk status is described as: system, activity, primary partition. Because there is no drive letter, it is not visible in the resource manager.

2. What's in the partition?

In order to find out, I assigned a drive letter F to it. To do this, select the partition in Disk Manager, right-click and select “Change Drive Letter and Path>; Popup Change Wizard. Click the “Add” button in the pop-up dialog box, click “ Assign the following drive letter & rdquo;, then click on the drop-down list to select F from it, and finally & ldquo; OK & rdquo; exit. Next, open “computer” to see a new disk partition F, enter the partition and find two hidden directories Boot and System Volume Information, in addition to two hidden files bootmgr and BOOTSECT.BAK. There is no doubt that Windows 7 saves the system's boot files in this hidden partition.

3, after adding the partition number will affect the system start it?

Next, we restart the system to see if the above operations (add disk Does it affect the startup of Windows 7. The test results system starts normally, and it can be seen that the above modifications will not affect the system startup. This is very well understood, the operation of reassigning the drive letter to the boot partition does not modify the system's boot file, nor does it modify the disk boot sector. It can be seen that the reason why Microsoft put the boot file of Windows 7 in a separate hidden partition must be the protection of the boot file.

4, can return to the hidden partition model it?

Since the hidden partition is to protect the system boot files, the following test to see if we can Cancel the drive letter you just gave it. Right click on the partition and select “change drive letter and path”, try “change" or “delete" drive letter shows <; cannot delete/change the drive letter of the volume" Is the system or boot volume. Thus, the process of adding a drive letter to this particular hidden partition in Windows 7 is irreversible.

5, delete the partition would not affect the file system starts it?

Here we try to delete the system partition boot file would be. The author logs in to the system as an administrator, enters the F partition and then deletes the file. During the deletion process, some of the files were undelete, indicating that the file is being used ” or the prompt <;no delete permission”. Then tried to give the administrator the "full control permission", the result was rejected. After testing, even the system does not have full control permissions, only the TrusterInstaller user has full control permissions. This user is unique to Windows 7. Its task is single and related to system installation. There is no such user in Windows 7 users and groups (lusrmgr.msc). Let's see if it affects system startup after deleting some files in the partition. Restart the system, no problem, the system starts normally. It can be seen that the file we just deleted has nothing to do with the system startup, and the files that are really related to the system startup cannot be deleted.

6. Does the deletion of the partition affect the system startup?

Through the disk manager, the author tries to <formatting”,“delete volume” Unsuccessful, it can be seen that Windows 7 has done a very good job of protecting the partition. Since the system tools don't work, try a third-party tool. I tested it with Acronis Disk Director Suite 10.0, which used the tool to delete the partition and its data, and then restart the system. The display "BOOTMBR is missing", that is, the main boot sector is lost and the system cannot be started. It can be seen that the hidden partition saves the boot file of the system and the primary boot partition information of the disk.