Windows 10: Clean Installation Created Partitions with Drive Letters?!

Greetings All,

I clean installed Win 10 RTM version on my laptop a few weeks ago. I have a basic GPT setup.

Installation went fine, however the installer created a 'Recovery' drive (D*Smile with a size of 600 MB (262 MB free) & a 'Local Disk' drive (E*Smile with a size of 451 MB (128 MB free).

I am stumped as to why it assigned letters to them. If you see the attachment of a snapshot of Partition Wizard, you will be able to see the setup.

My question, besides why the assigned letters is the where the status is listed as 'None'. Is it safe to delete these?? I am assuming that the only partitions i need to keep are the 'ESP', which is 'Active & Boot' - so it is needed to be able to boot into Windows. How about the one listed as 'Other' - the capacity is 128 MB & all 128 MB are used - do i save this one as well?

I really wanted a less cluttered setup - so when all these partitions were created, particularly 'D' & 'E', i was perplexed as to why they were created.

Any help/insight is greatly appreciated!


TIA

:)

 

Does a Clean Install of Windows 10 affect ONLY the C Drive

I have several partitions/drives (d,e,f,g) on my computer. I also have a manufacturer's recovery partition/drive for Windows 8.1.

Will a bootable installation created by the Media Creation Tool affect these other partitions/drives?

In other words, does a Clean Install affect only the C drive?

 

No System Reserved Partition After Free Upgrade and Clean Install of Windows 10 Pro x64

This is my second reply to Mr Wilson_13's reply. Mr Wilson_13's answer did no answer my question. For both upgrades I did a clean install and formatted the system partition. So there was no existing system partition in either case. The two existing Widows
7 partitions were about the same size and neither had a recovery partition. I formatted the system partition for both clean installs.

The only differences were:

1) The first upgrade was done in October 2015 and the second one was done in June 2016.

2) For the first upgrade Microsoft required that Windows 7 first be upgraded to Windows 10 so that Windows 10 could be authorized and a product key could be obtained.

3) For the second upgrade I was allowed to skip the Windows 7 upgrade step and complete the clean install of Windows 10 and upgrade in a single step. I'm happy for that.

The differences after both clean installs were completed are as follows:

1) For the first clean install, two partitions were created: A 500 MB System Reserve Partition (C and and a System Partition (J. Both partitions fit in the space formatted for the system partition.

2) For the second clean install, a single System Partition (C was created.

My questions:

1) Do I need the System Reserve Partition created with the first clean install? If so how is it used?

2) Should I add a System Reserve Partition for the second clean install? If so how do I do that?

3) If the System Reserve Partition created with the first clean install is not needed, can I delete it and change the drive letter for the system partition from (J to (C? My concern here is that, programs installed on that system drive may use drive
letters for navigation. If they do, I don't want to change the drive letter because I've got days invested installing other software on the system since the clean install and I don't want to do that again.

Thanks.

Bill

 

The best way to have decluttered the partitions during a truly clean install would have been to select "Custom Install" and delete all partitions existing (assuming none had data to keep) on the disk in the front end of the install routine. See STep 10 in Brink's Tutorial: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/1...n-install.html

It looks like you could do away with the partitions with type "Data Partition" but perhaps you should first check Diskpart to see how it has them. From an elevated (Admin) command prompt enter:

DISKPART
SELECT DISK 0
LIST PARTITION

and show us what output that generates.

Also, showing the output of the command (AFTER exiting diskpart) "reagentc /info" could be useful in pinpointing the truly "in use" recovery partition.

Once you've determined which to really keep (assuming you don't just repeat clean install deleting all partitions on the fly), you can delete unwanted partitions with MiniTool (DO NOT delete the EFI partition) and slide the partitions around to recover the space to your main OS partition after expanding it into the gaps.

 

Thanks 'Word Man' for the quick and concise reply.

Here are the two files you requested.

I would like to get rid of whatever partitions i can to simplify the setup. Everything is working fine (as i said in OP, i just clean installed Win 10 RTM recently) and i don't want to mess up anything by doing something i shouldn't (of course i would make a full image backup first *Wink)

Any other words of wisdom from yourself and others is much appreciated!


TIA

 

@Word Man

Just a small note on partition programs for my friend Word Man. Check out Aomei Partition Assistant too, free version. Has more options than my old favorite MiniTool. Actually a lot more. *Smile

 

OK, OldMike, thanks. I'll put it on my Bucket List, but won't wait 'til I'm about to croak.

 

Well gee I hope not *Smile One of the differences is MiniTool Free will not allow user to use the "Merge Partition" feature, this only works in the paid version. Where AOMEI Free version will allow this feature to work. This feature is VERY useful for lots of folks.
I didn't know that MiniTool wouldn't allow this in their free version, just found out recently.
Take care, Mike

 

Glad to see you already intend to make a full disk image - can I ask, with which software? I'm more familiar with Macrium Reflect and Image for Windows/DOS/Linux (Terabyte) as far as their capabilities.

The diskpart list indicates that the two partitions (numbered 1 and 6) mapped as D: and E: are primary partitions for data and these are candidates for deletion - they're probably recovery partitions from prior OS installs.

The reagentc /info confirms that partition 5 is your active recovery partition.

In your case, you could, after making a full disk image stored externally, use MiniTool to delete partitions 1 and 6, slide 2,3, and 4 to the left as far as possible (no change in size yet), slide 5 to the right as far as possible, and then, finally expand 4 to fill up the remaining gap.

Note that 3 is unallocated space actually but was reserved by WIndows when you did the clean install and I would respect that reservation and size as is for now although it should be safe to move it. Partition 2 is your EFI partition and is necessary for booting as you have it set up.

I haven't done this precise operation myself and so can't give you an authoritative guarantee that it will boot afterwards, more like a 90-95% guarantee - but that's why you have the option of either restoring your full disk image or redoing a clean install (using custom and deleting the partitions) as a fall back position. However, both Macruim Reflect and Image for Windows have the capability to directly address boot problems that could arise - hence my first question above.

It would be best if another supporting member could confirm the above.

I've got to run to work but will check in a little later this morning.

 

Ultimately it was not a clean installation of windows 10...
The windows installer would of only created 4 partitions..
EFI 100MB, Recovery 450MB, Reserved 128MB, OS

 

Windows Clean Install does not always make those partitions with those exact spec's BTY...

 

Thanks again 'Word Man' for the detailed help - i use Acronis True Image 2014 for my backups.

I assumed that partition 1 & 6 could be safely deleted & that the EFI partition needed to be kept as it is clearly labelled as the boot partition.

I also use 'Rollback Rx' in place of Windows System Restore. When i set it up, i included drives D & E to be protected so i'll leave things as they are for now - i don't think i can remove those partitions with Rollback installed and protecting them.

Take care & thanks again!

 

You're very welcome AthanasianCreed. I'm happy I could at least be of a little help. Please see my PM regarding Rollback RX.