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Disk Recovery not Working

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Hardware: HP Pavilion a6152n Desktop
8GB Memory
Disk 0 400GB
Disk 1 2TB

How I got here:
A few weeks ago I migrated this PC from Windows XP to Windows 8.1. I did a full wipe and not an upgrade. Here is the rub, I wasn't paying full attention to the install. Windows created a 350MB Reserved Partition on Disk 0 and I am assuming through my own stupidity I installed Windows 8.1 on Disk 1. This is not what I wanted and I did not find this mistake until a few days ago after installing all the MS patches and other software.

Current Situation:
I did a full backup of the Reserve Partition and the Windows 8.1 Partition. I have tried several times to restore the Windows 8.1 Partition to the 350+GB partition on Disk 0. I have tried restoring the Reserve Partition and the Windows 8.1 Partition at the same time, I also tried restoring the MBRs too. The last attempt was done just restoring the Windows 8.1 partition. Nothing has work. On my last attempt I can get to a black screen with a working cursor. I even installed 8.1 the way I wanted it and still can't get the backup version to overlay that version correctly. It should not be this hard! I restored other systems using other backup software and never had this trouble. I would appreciate any advice. I am just happy this is not an critical PC and I have the time to determine what's wrong.

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Yeah... for some reason, sometime, Windows put the active partition on a disk, and install Windows on the other. I don't know what criteria the installer uses...
You can try to fix this, by restoring first the system reserved, then the C:\ partition on the same disk. You will need to mark the system reserved active, then you will have to boot on the Windows installation DVD to "repair the startup of the computer".

While you do this, disconnect any other disk. After the computer boots properly on the disk you want, you can put the other disk back in.

Thanks for your response. I took half of your advice. I remembered reading that the System Reserved Partition is only needed if your system's firmware is UEFI, which mine is not. I removed both partitions on Drive 0 and created a new MBR. I then restored the Windows 8.1 Partition. On boot up I did need to use the Windows install disk to repair the boot area, but after that the PC was completely restored.