Windows 10: Hidden Partition(s) on C: - Help

I've installed Win 10 twice on my system, the first time I did an upgrade when it came out, and then last weekend I did a clean install. I never use system restore, so its turned off, but it would appear each time I installed 10 it created a 450 MB hidden partition on my C: drive its calling "recovery". I'd really like to get this gig of space back, windows disk management won't let me touch it. Is there any 3rd party program that will allow me to delete or allocate the space?

:)

 

Windows 10 and deleting the hidden partitions

I talked to the defrag show guys and they said the old windows 7 - 8.1 system restore partitions are no longer used.

and I can remove them. other hidden partition I show contact the manufacture of the pc.

they also said to backup first and be careful when removing the hidden partitions.

Channel 9's defrag show and defrag tool the best Microsoft tech help out there.

rob

 

disk partition

Ignore that partition. 750MB is irrelevant since it is tiny and it might be a hidden partition that is needed but not recognized by disk management. You could not add it to c anyway since it is before C. The only partition that could be added must be after
c on the right side

 

from cmd prompt (admin) type

reagentc /info

post pic

 

First of all, it not GB, it's MB. From reagentc /info. It shows that your recovery Winre.wim is in partition 5 counting from left to right, there's a 16MB hidden partition that disk management does not show.
If you delete the 2 partitions above, you won't be able to create a recovery disk. Leave them alone, they are only several hundred MB's.

NOTE: a normal fresh install will create 4 partitions: 450MB recovery, 100MB EFI system, 16MB MSR and your C drive. Since you did install twice without clean up the first one, Windows create a second 450MB reserved partition next to C: .

Here's what mine as shown below:

 

Its two hidden partitions at 450 MB = 900 MB, just 100 MB short of 1 GB, so excuse me it its 100 MB short of 1 GB (gig).
In all of my Win 7 and 8.1 installs, these two partitions never existed. I don't need a recover disk, I use Acronis to create and image. They are NOT just 16 MB, and before the install of Win 10, they never existed.

 

The 16 MB partition is one not showing as topgun pointed out. I think that was just to clarify why the partition with your current recovery agent is numbered as partition 5. Ultimately it's your choice but you're only using about 40 GB or so of your C: drive (84% free) as it is and I'm surprised you would be concerned at this point about recovering less than 0.5% (the 1 GB) of disk space for use.

 

In Windows 7/8 You installed Windows with MBR style partition. With MBR, you can install W7/8 without the recovery partition by first formatting the drive. If you leave the drive unallocated then Windows will create the recovery partitions.
MBR-> 7: 100MB and C Drive
MBR-> 8: 350 MB and C drive.
MBR-> Windows 10: 500MB and C drive.

UEFI->10: 450MB, 100MB EFI System, 16MB MSR (hidden from disk management) and C: drive.

 

That's because you're looking at clean install (fresh) install of 10, I have a lot of software / games yet to install, but I like to create an image before installing anything else. Hence the reason to get rid of the two extra partitions. Right now C: is showing (4) partitions. Normally I have only two, C:\ and the small partition that windows install creates.

 

In that case, you redo the clean install and make sure you delete all partitions during the early stages of the clean install when offered the opportunity. This way, you'll only get the partitions that Windows thinks it needs for a clean install, i.e., you'll have only one recovery partition, a small reserved partition, your OS partition, and a 100 MB reserved partition (if you set the disk as GPT - with disk set to MBR, you'll have less). In any event, your drive with all data and programs must be pretty full if you're worried about 1 GB. Maybe you should consider getting a larger OS disk. I see you have quite a few other disks - external ?

Have a look at Steps 12 or 13 in this Tutorial: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/1...n-install.html

 

Mine show's the same thing only mine is 858 mb I'm not to worried about it but I can's seem to do anything with that 8mb unallocated space since my clean install.

 

Mine is even more spartan. I use Macrium Reflect to make backup copies of the system partition...

If you are using MBR and partition disk first by creating a Primary partition (and marking it as ACTIVE) you avoid Windows creating the 100MB "reserved" partition. I have all my data on the Extended partition (dektop, documents, downloads, etc).