Windows 10: Clean Installation - Recovery Partition Position

The Partition contains WinRE on a clean Installation it is just the Basic Recovery Options, as we all know it...

But on an OEM system it could contain a custom WinRE, which may included drivers needed for Touch Screens and onscreen keyboard... As well as a few other drivers..

It is always best to create an OEM Recovery Drive (Disk) before doing anything... Because someday you will wish you Had...

 

No - I was just adding some extra information for information purposes only. To many users, it is not clear how the Windows 10 recovery partitions work.

You are indeed correct about decision to keep oem partitions.

Aplogies if I offended you unintentionally - certainly not my intent.

Have a nice day .

 

OK, cereberus, thanks for responding to what was unfounded paranoia on my part. Maybe I was having a fragile day or the Chantix I'm using to help kick nicotine is making me paranoid. Sorry to have cluttered up the thread, folks... *Redface

 

That is especially true for tablets with 8.1+Bing.

I always advise tablet/hybrid users to create a recovery drive as you say if 8.1+Bing as the standard 8.1 iso does often lack such drivers. I also advise exporting drivers in case a clean install of Windows 10 is needed. See link below.

More importantly, the standard iso will not be activated by an 8.1+Bing key and MS do not provide 8.1+Bing isos (You can only get it from tablet oem - that is the price user pays for effectively getting OS for free).

Fortunately that restriction no longer applies with Windows 10, but creating recovery and exporting drivers as a backup is still a really good plan.

http://woshub.com/how-to-export-driv...indows-8-1-u1/

Finally, I did quite a bit of testing with several tablets, and Macrium Reflect Free was the only tool I found that reliably backed up and restore Windows 8.1 or 10.

Many of the well known image tools could not handle the unusual 32bit UEFI installed used on many tablets. I freely admit I have not revisited my tests in the last 18 months, so I cannot say if other tools have been updated and work reliably.

The most spectacular failure came from the Windows own image tool (which hass not been updated for several years really!

 

We all have a bad hair day now and then .

 

Hi,

Good info from all posters here.

For those who just want to know what drives their system has installed:

Admin prompt:

pnputil -e > %userprofile%/Desktop/Drivers.txt

This puts a simple list in basic text form on the desktop of the user.

Another way to export drivers:

Admin prompt:

Dism /online /export-driver /destination*Biggrin:\Drivers

Replace D:\ with the drive letter of your choice and create the destination directory beforehand on there.

Cheers, *Wink

 

That's funny the way the editor has interpreted D as a smiley - LOL

 

I am sorry if I did not make myself clear enough.

As a matter of fact I did NOT want to create any specific partition layout during the Clean Installation. On the contrary, after having erased the whole mess of pre-installed partitions, I just did exactly what you are suggesting , i.e. I let Windows Setup to decide what to create and where. It may be worth to add that I had no choice anyway because, when I selected "New" just to create a single Windows partition in the single Unallocated Space resulting from the previous deletion, Windows Setup automatically re-created a whole brand new layout of partitions (Recovery, System, MSR and Windows). In other words, either one clicks on "Next" or creates a single partition in the Unallocated Space, he or she will get exactly the same result.

Sorry again. *Redface

 

Thank you all for your replies to the OP.

I feel really grateful for your throwing some light on a rather obscure issue, at least for myself.

To sum it all up, providing I understood well, it seems to me that there is a general agreement about the opportunity of letting Windows 10 Setup to decide what to create and where during a Clean Installation, partitioning-wise of course. The only exception I could detect seems to be the chance of "using some encryption IIRC" (fdegrove).

I honestly had that feeling, basically because Windows Setup left me no choice, but having stumbled in the very interesting article UEFI/GPT-based hard drive partitions I got full of doubts. Bear with me for looking for confirmation, but as I said I am a newbie.

I would just point out that the initial aim was in no way assessing the opportunity of irremediably loosing the chance of reverting an OEM machine to the original (generally uselessly chaotic, IMHO) factory setup and, in fact, I clearly stated that "one must first create an external recovery drive because after having deleted the recovery partition(s) this will no longer be possible".

Nonetheless, I will confess that the idea of Clean Installations seems very appealing to me in the first place and this above all for machines originally shipped with Windows 8, to which I do not see why on earth someone would revert after having upgraded to Windows 10, and/or for those ones with relatively small drives, like my Lenovo Yoga 2 equipped with a 128 GB (not that much, uh?) SSD Drive.

An interesting caveat to all this, well highlighted by some of you, would concern hybrid machines with a consequent issue with touch screens and on-screen keyboards. I just wonder whether the drivers needed for these devices are included in a custom WinRE, as usual in first position, or, more simply, in the OEM partition that finds its place between the System and MSR ones in the original layout... big question mark





(Image refers to the original partition layout of a Lenovo Yoga 2 13)

 

On an external media such as USB flash drive or USB hard drive, create a folder called E:\DriversW8. Use whatever drive letter the external is, I used E:\ as example. In Windows 8, from an elevated ("run as administrator") command prompt run:
dism /online /export-driver /destination:E:\DriversW8.

Now you will know exactly where all the drivers are that Windows did not come with natively. They will all be in E:\DriversW8.

 

Fan-tas-tic! *Biggrin
Never heard of them before, but they work great (also in Windows 10).
Thank you very much, fdegrove and NavyLCDR!

 

Hi,

Always glad to help. *Wink

Cheers,

 

Hello again,

An update that I hope all Contributors may find very interesting.

Besides starting this thread, I got in touch with the Author of the article UEFI/GPT-based hard drive partitions that I quoted so many times and that was at the origin of my doubts. He has been extremely kind and we exchanged a few emails that put definitely at rest the above mentioned doubts and I would like to share with all of you the final bottom line (permission to quote has been granted by the Author).

“Windows Setup does not create the partition layout we recommend OEM partners use, but the partition layout created by Windows Setup is fully supported.”

IMHO, this puts a seal on your being right about the opportunity of letting Windows 10 Setup to decide where to place the Recovery Partition during a Clean Installation.

As far as I am concerned, case closed. Thank you, indeed, each and all of you!