No System partition on new clean install

I did a clean install build 10130 on separate (MBR) ssd. All other ssds (Win 7 and Win 8.1) were unplugged. I ended up with no "system" partition. I use the Win 8.1 ssd as the first in the boot order and this drive has a "system" partition from an earlier Win 10 install.
All is well and the Boot Loader Menu shows the OS to choose from.
QUESTION: Is it necessary to have a "system" partition on the Win 10 installation? Can one be added with out a new clean install??
Thanks for any help

BurrWalnut said:

Run Disk Management by right-clicking or pressing and holding Computer (This PC), clicking Manage > Storage > Disk Management. The drive that is labelled as System is where the boot files are stored. It is where the initial booting starts from and, if you're multi-booting, it produces a list of operating systems on the screen. The operating system you boot to will be labelled as Boot, Crash Dump and Page File and is given the drive letter C, which is not necessarily the System drive, i.e. you’re not necessarily booting to the System drive where the boot files are located. Also, the Page File could have been disabled or moved to a different drive to, say, alleviate disk space problems.

The first installed disk is numbered as disk 0 (zero) and the next one is 1 (one), etc. however, partitions are numbered from 1 (one) onwards. If you have a pre-installed version of Windows, you may have partitions without drive letters and a manufacturer’s recovery partition. These can be disregarded in terms of booting.

A single Windows installation will contain six attributes: Primary, System, Active, Boot, Page File and Crash Dump, although the Page File could have been disabled or moved.

Thank you for your input.

If you removed all other drives, it is possibly to install without a System Reserved partition if you pre-partition the drive.

But my question would be how did you get a boot menu, which included the other installs, if they were not present during the install?

A picture of your Disk Management might help. Also, using an administrative command prompt and typing
bcdedit /enum all
might show you and us where the boot files are.

Saltgrass said:

If you removed all other drives, it is possibly to install without a System Reserved partition if you pre-partition the drive.

But my question would be how did you get a boot menu, which included the other installs, if they were not present during the install?

A picture of your Disk Management might help. Also, using an administrative command prompt and typing
bcdedit /enum all
might show you and us where the boot files are.

Thanks. I will do as you suggest. I will be traveling for a few days so it will next weekend before I can get to it.
To answer your question, I had three OS on 3 seperate ssd's. Win 8.1 was the drive with the system boot files. This latest Win 10 Build 10130 was a re-Install (clean off a USB) because my exsisting Win 10 10130 was acting flakey . So I removed the Win 8.1 and the Win 7 ssd's and did a clean install deleting all the exsisting partitions on the old Win 10 10130. This gave and unallocated partition and this is where I installed the Win 10. Thus no reserved partition.

This latest Win 10 Build 10130 was a re-Install (clean off a USB) because my exsisting Win 10 10130 was acting flakey . So I removed the Win 8.1 and the Win 7 ssd's and did a clean install deleting all the exsisting partitions on the old Win 10 10130. This gave and unallocated partition and this is where I installed the Win 10. Thus no reserved partition.

to answer correctly _ the reinstallation of windows 10 was to an existing disk - with a prior BCD boot record (which is the entry the Boot menu is using)
and since you installed in MBR mode - there is NO reserved partition, nor is there a need for a system partition.. As MBR can share the OS partition and the System Partition

Thanks for the info and "correct way to explain my situation".