SYSTEM_DRV partition - what is it? what does it do? [ Edited ]

[john44]

My new T420s came with windows 7 installed.

There are three partitions on the drive. The windows one, the lenovo recovery one, and there's another, the first one on the drive, that is called "SYSTEM_DRV". This is 1.17 GB of which 400mb are used, and it is NTFS formatted.

This is a hidden partition (no drive letter) so inaccessible from windows at least. It also has the 'system' and 'active flags. (the windows partition has the 'boot' flag).

I imagine this is the so called UEFI partition, because this laptop ships with UEFI bios.

But, as I can understand, the whole thing uses the normal MBR partitioning, not GPT partitioning.

So, why is this UEFI partition there? What does it do? What does it contain? Is it necessary?

EDIT: My guess that this SYSTEM_DRV partition is the UEFI partition may be completely wrong of course, looking into that.. It may be something else, something lenovo-related like the recovery partition... If someone has more information please say so.

[john44]

So I opened the SYSTEM_DRV partition using a linux boot cd, and there are several files inside.
On the root of the drive there's a file 'sdrive' which has this as content:

"Lenovo Service Partition Version 1.0.0.2009"

There are also boot folders, it has a windows boot manager. What's going on?

I'm starting to thing this is a separate windows installation that is booting when you press the ThinkVantage button. I still don't know how this is related to the "Lenovo Recovery" partition (if it is).

[bananaman · Accepted solution]

Hi john44, and welcome to the Lenovo User Community!

SYSTEM_DRV is Lenovo's current version of the standard Windows 7 BIOS system partition. By default a Windows 7 install creates two partitions, the system partition and the Windows partition. This configuration is necessary for Bitlocker and for operating more than one OS from the disk.

Thus far Lenovo UEFI systems are shipping in Legacy BIOS emulation mode i.e. not UEFI boot mode. It remains to be seen what Lenovo's default partition scheme for UEFI boot will be.

Resources:

Community knowledge base article on UEFI:

http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/tkb/articleprintpage/tkb-id/Special_Interest_General@tkb/article-id/22

Microsoft article on Windows 7 partitions:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd799232(WS.10).aspx

Hope this helps!

[JDay]

It contains your boot loader and the Rescue & Recovery environment, do not delete this.

[john44]

Thank you very much bananaman and JDay. I'm now looking how windows 7 actually works with regards to having separate system and boot partitions - and how I can install ubuntu without messing them up for dual boot.

[pkr]

Even I have the same situation, cannot install Ubuntu (dual boot) due to existing 3 primary partitions

[Hiro Retired Support Specialist]

Hello Pkr and John44,

Hey guys duel booting OS is tons of fun and lets you play with many great OS without any loss. I just installed Ubuntu 12.04 Lite 32-bit on a X230 and didn't have any issues. The Ubuntu installer walks you through it pretty well. After the install I checked the HDD and both windows and Lenovo recovery partition were and do work fine. In the end the HDD has 5 partitions: Windows OS, System Reserved, Lenovo Recovery, Ubuntu OS, and a TVT partition.

I hope this helps, the Ubuntu installer like I said walks you through so as long as you don't erase and replace your Windows 7 OS with Ubuntu everything should be fine. Yet as always back your image of your OS just in case.

As always I hope this helps,

Best regards,

HIro

The X230 has Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit, Intel core I7, 4GB installed memory, 500GB HDD

[Greengineer]

I found out about this SYSTEM_DRV because when I went to defrag my C drive, the only drive option that is shown to select is SYSTEM_DRV and the C drive doesn't even show up. Thoughts?

Thanks!

[yeamayne]

Hi im sorry if this is the wrong area please let me know if i need to repost somewhere else.

I have done the stupid thing and deleted the files from inside system drv. i kow how dumb this was now. i have many reasons for being so dumb. i ahve the flu and am not thinking properly and after trying to back up with many failed attempts alot of dvds later and errors with my hard drive. then when i tried to do it agian it said i couldnt because there was still a back up going on (i didnt believ so becasue i had closed program and restarted laptop. so it wouldnt let me start another back up (im using the lenovo back and recovery programm for thinkpad w530s) i thought deleting this may allow me to do it again which it did but now when i back up it cplams it cannot find those files (becasue im dumb and deleted them) so much regret. i have tried useing piriform recuva to get them back but it claimed they were gone. when i go to the partiton manager the partion is there but the 400 or so mbs of data are definelty gone. my question is how can i get this back as i would like to factory reset the lapttop but i doubt i can without these files. if i reanstall the lenovo resque and recovery software will it give me this stuff back? or is it gone forever? could someone with the same laptop possibly give me these files would they be the same? aslo is there a way to make this drive partiton visible in my computer so piraform recuva can work just on it rather then searching my whole laptop every time?

[yeamayne]

so guys i had already burnt the boot media to a disk, it looks just like the stuff i deleted. i copied it form the disk back into there and when it asked to replce some files i said no (becasue they were obviosly already there and i didnt want to overwirte them. but it seems that maybe its 100 mb more then what was there before. can someone tell what files should be there or if tis will be fine. im looking to do a facotry restore asap and i dont want this to affect it