I'm doing a Custom install to try and fix some dumb registry errors like Windows not remembering my folder icon options and desktop icon locations etc.

It asks me "Where do you want to install Windows?" and I have two options:


Disk 0 Partition 1: System Reserved (E: )
Total size: 100 MB
Free: 71 MB
Type: System

Disk 0 Partition 2: (C: )
Total size: 931.4 GB
Free: 732.7 GB
Type: Primary

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but which one of these do I need to pick? I do NOT want to have 2 versions of Windows 7 installed.. I'm trying to re-install and overwrite my existing Windows.

Install on C:
probably format E: after that

How and why do I format E: ?

Meh, first of all, what made you pay for a windows 7 enterprise or ultimate edition when you don't even know what bitlocker is?

And to get rid of that 100mb partition that is created for bitlocker you need to completely format the whole drive. Formatting E: won't get rid of the allocated space for that partition.

http://www.racksrv.com/portal/knowle...-parition.html

Well... I don't have Ultimate edition, and I've never even heard of Enterprise. I have Home Premium 64bit.

I may have created that 100 MB partition and installed Windows 7 on it when I first put this build together, probably because some directions said it was preferable. I don't remember.

How can I tell which partition has my existing Windows 7 installation on it?

When you install Windows 7, it creates two partitions. One is the primary partition (C), which is the file system you're familiar with when you use your computer. The 100 MB partition (E) is the system reserve, which I think is used by Windows 7 for some features that require a boot process separate from Windows 7, but I'm not entirely sure.

If you're doing a clean install, just delete both of those partitions, and install Windows 7 on a new partition using all of the available space.

Edit: Deleting a partition will permanently delete everything you have on that partition, so copy everything you want to keep to a thumb drive or something before doing so. Then after the fresh install, you can go online and reinstall all the software you usually use, and move your files from the thumb drive back onto your computer. It sounds like you're trying to reinstall Windows while still retaining everything else, which might be possible, but in my experience that's never solved anything if I was having serious issues like you seem to be.

THIS

The 100 MB partition was created by your previous windows install.

When faced with this choice, I would create a ca. 100 GB partition and use that partition to install WIN7. The 100 MB system partition will be automatially created.

The remaining disk space will be another partition. Use the 100Gb partition for Operating System and software.

Use the other partition for your personal data: pictures, movies, music, documents etc.

I think it is a good idea to keep OS and data separated.