Windows 10: Can I delete the recovery partition?

The issue with me: I have a grub boot-loader, I want to tri boot my system with solaris. Because I use an MBR partitioning table, I can only have 4 primary partitions. Windows recovery partition is an extra partition on my drive that I would rather not have. I was wondering if I can delete my recovery partition ( the assigned boot drive ) and manually boot from the file system partition.

Answer to my question: I am not hundred percent... probably about 90% sure and 10% untested. In my case, I can probably delete the recovery partition and manually enter the primary windows files-system to be able to boot on the grub boot-loader. The primary file-system for windows has a boot assigned to it, it should work.

In your case scenario: You can back up your data, delete the recovery partition. I am 100% sure that afterwards, your windows will not boot automatically. In order to boot, you would probably have to press f9 or esc , go to boot manager and boot into your hard drive partition, manually. .. That may work, but I am not 100% sure. The problem nowadays may arise, when you have a GPT partition table for the new bios system. .. Windows * + work with UEFI BIOS that can give you complication. .. So I recommend backing up your data, and make sure the format of your HDD is in MBR partition, before trying. You can also test the theory with Virtualization.. VMWARE.. such. you can delete the recovery partition and try to boot into the virtualized system for testing.... .


GOOD LUCK

 

The issue with me: I have a grub boot-loader, I want to tri boot my system with solaris. Because I use an MBR partitioning table, I can only have 4 primary partitions. Windows recovery partition is an extra partition on my drive that I would rather not have. I was wondering if I can delete my recovery partition ( the assigned boot drive ) and manually boot from the file system partition.

Answer to my question: I am not hundred percent... probably about 90% sure and 10% untested. In my case, I can probably delete the recovery partition and manually enter the primary windows files-system to be able to boot on the grub boot-loader. The primary file-system for windows has a boot assigned to it, it should work.

In your case scenario: You can back up your data, delete the recovery partition. I am 100% sure that afterwards, your windows will not boot automatically. In order to boot, you would probably have to press f9 or esc , go to boot manager and boot into your hard drive partition, manually. .. That may work, but I am not 100% sure. The problem nowadays may arise, when you have a GPT partition table for the new bios system. .. Windows * + work with UEFI BIOS that can give you complication. .. So I recommend backing up your data, and make sure the format of your HDD is in MBR partition, before trying. You can also test the theory with Virtualization.. VMWARE.. such. you can delete the recovery partition and try to boot into the virtualized system for testing.... .


GOOD LUCK

 

Yes you can, certainly. You can either install windows (as described earlier in this thred) to put the recovery into the C:\ drive or alternatively (as generally no-one cares about recovery and uses something like Macrium anyway) you can just delete it..

If you delete it and you have a problem booting you can use your USB Windows installation key instead.

Just to be clear: Windows requires a minimum of 1 partition. If you think you can recover Windows from your installation media then delete the rest. They are as far as anyone knows, and certainly in your case, pointless.

If you don't know how to recover Windows from installation media you'd be better off leaving it.

Like stabilizers on a bicycle really.

 

I have a clean Install and this rtecovery partition is still there.

It's preventing me from installing Ubuntu alongside windows as I also have a partition for all my personal files. So because of the recovery partition I have the maximum of 4 primary partitions and can not create one for Ubuntu.

So... is it needed? will windows 10 blow up if its gone? Windows Drive management wont let me do anything to it.

 

You can use third party software like MiniTool Partition Wizard to expand the system reserved partition to big enough to move the contents of the recovery partition into it. You will also have to point Windows recovery to the new partition containing the recovery files (reagentc.exe). You can also convert the boot partition (containing Windows 10) and your data partition into logical partitions contained within one extended partition.

You could also use EasyBCD to move the boot files to the boot partition containing Windows 10 and then delete the system reserved partition.

Don't forget, Microsoft had defined these partitions backwards, IMHO. The system partition is the small partition containing the boot files. The boot partition is the large partition containing the operating system. On a legacy system you can combine the system and boot partitions. You can combine the system and recovery partitions. You can even combine all three, but that isn't recommended because then if something went wrong with the one single partition they were all in you would not have much choice left but to re-install the OS.

 

I ended up just taking the gamble... Deleted the partition during ubuntu install and it was fine. Can boot into win10 still without any problems.