Most computer users for some reason have a very firmly rooted opinion that the system drive is the partition of the hard drive in which the operating system was originally installed (which, in this case, absolutely no role plays). But here are more advanced users to the understanding of this term are more deeply. Why can there be such a difference of opinion, then we propose to consider it in more detail, and at the same time we will try to find out what is really meant when it comes to system disks.
The system drive is ...
Yes, of course, in most cases, a system disk or partition refers to the area of the hard drive allocated for the files and folders of the operating system.
As a rule, if the system is not installed, say, as a second OS, in a logical partition, on Windows it is a “C” drive (everyone knows that). But let's see what other interpretations of the described term are encountered, and we will start not only from the user’s understanding of the essence of the issue, but also from the knowledge of many computer scientists and experts who ate such a dog on such issues.
Varieties of system drives
In general, if you approach the issue under consideration objectively, you can safely say that the system disk is a drive or, if you want, a memory area of a certain device that allows you to start the operating system itself, the tools for installing it, and the means to recover or eliminate errors.
Thus, among all that is called system disks, the following devices can be distinguished in the classification:
- hard disks;
- logical partitions;
- removable boot and recovery devices;
- boot antivirus applications.
System hard drive
As for this definition, this concept means either the entire hard drive with the operating system installed, if it is not divided into several partitions, or the allocated (reserved) area of physical memory (volume) that the OS uses to store its own files and folders necessary for it correct operation.
In most cases, if you do not take into account the installation of a second system or virtual machine, the Windows system drive is the “C” partition (this is the default, since earlier the notation “A” and “B” were used for diskettes, for optical media - "E", for bootable media - "X", and for removable USB- and other devices - all the rest). That is, it turns out that the system unit defines the drive with the system by default. In the case of RAID arrays combining several hard drives into one system, a special boot tool is used with the choice of the partition from which the start can be made.
Key files and folders
But what is in the system partition by default immediately after installing the system? It goes without saying that these are OS files (the Windows directory containing the system disk files and additional directories).
Software components that are initially present or are installed by the user in the process, are usually placed in the Program Files folder. But these are only those objects that the user sees. If you dig deeper, in the system section you can also find folders related to a specific user, if there are several accounts on the computer.
All objects cannot be considered. The main thing here is that they are available for viewing only when navigating to the Users directory on the local drive, some folders like AppData are not even displayed in the local user directories. However, it is not so difficult to set the display parameters for all hidden objects, using the view menu with a mark on the corresponding line for this.
Can a logical partition be a system?
This issue is relevant only if not one, but several operating systems are installed on the computer. Moreover, it does not matter that one of them is Windows, and the other, say, Linux.
Even if there are two operating systems from the same developer, they will never be installed in the same logical partition. Accordingly, when you turn on the computer and after checking the operability of the equipment in the primary BIOS / UEFI systems, computer control is not transferred to the system core immediately, but only after a special bootloader has been triggered, in which you can choose your preferred OS. In the case of installing the system on the “D” drive, say, the tenth version of Windows, to start the Windows 10 system drive will be defined as the specified virtual partition.
Bootable removable media
Installation media can also be equally denoted by the term described. For example, a removable system disk Windows 7 or any other OS is a medium that contains an installation distribution kit or recovery tools.
Using these tools, you can perform many actions that may not be available in loaded OS. For example, the same command line, when the entire stationary system, roughly speaking, “flies,” allows you to use standard commands to restore its functionality, even though the console itself is launched from removable media.
Separately, it is worth noting the operating systems of the so-called portable type, for which installation exclusively on the hard drive is not required.
The simplest example is the same version of Windows 7, the files of which are written to an optical DVD, and after installing it as a priority boot device, working with the system can be as simple as if it were installed directly on the hard drive.
Problems during system boot and methods for solving them
In general, it seems, it is already clear that the system disk is a very extensible concept, and it cannot be attributed to any one type. But let's look at some possible errors in starting the system when the standard recovery tool (rollback to the previous state point) does not work or simply does not give an effect.
Typically, you can use the special boot menu, which is called when the computer starts by pressing the F8 key with the choice of loading the last working configuration. If this does not help, you should use the safe mode call.
The best option is to start from removable media and then call the command console. There are a lot of tools here, but among the main ones, one can single out a system file checker with sfc / scannow recovery, online system recovery when loading DISM network drivers, as well as reanimating boot records and even completely overwriting the bootloader using the Bootrec.exe tool, for which several additional parameters.
Antivirus software
Finally, it can be noted that the anti-virus system disk is one of the main tools with a built-in bootloader that allows you to neutralize most of the known threats before the start of the main OS.
In this case, it means that the Rescue Disk utility is first loaded from the removable device, in which you can choose to use the graphical interface similar to that presented in Windows, and then mark all the necessary areas for verification and perform the most complete scan for threats . By the way, it is precisely such programs that allow you to get rid of viruses that are not detected by any means at all in a working system and are located exclusively in RAM.
conclusions
As already understood, it is impossible to name the logical partition selected for the OS installation on the hard drive as the system drive, because, based on the above information, there can be quite a few varieties. In addition, here it’s worth paying attention to some well-established stereotypes: users refer to the system drive as partitions from the OS to the HDD, system engineers tend to identify system drives with removable media that have recovery or development tools, so you won’t understand which of them they are right. As it turns out, both of them are right. But one hopes that even such a brief consideration of the issue will nevertheless give some idea of what it is.