Windows 10: Maybe some other Win 10 Users - have same questions about Partitions

I have lots of questions about HD Partitions, and am post the Disk Management screen shot from my desktop a few minutes ago.

Maybe someone could tell me what each of these partitions are for, and why so many. ? MY Drive F: is a backup drive, and not much on it at this time.

My Drive C: is the one that has been upgraded from 8.1 to Windows 10. I am listing and will learn a lot from any/all comments.
Attachment 36812
Thanks for any comments about any or each of the partitions.
Thanks. Cliff M.

:)

 

Laptop won't boot after trying to install Windows 10

I downloaded that iso at the beginning. Then I created two partitions at the beginning of the hard disk. Then went on to install Win 10. It booted up. I went all the way to choose the primary partition and clicked next. Then it went into a loop
without bringing in the next window "Windows Setup". After about 20 minutes, I put the laptop off to restart the process. But, the Windows 10 iso never booted, other than showing the windows logo and never ending loop.

I have created the iso again from another laptop, but the result is the same. So, the question; is there a way to reformat the hard disk, or is there a way to install Win 10 some other way, or did the laptop die?

 

Installing Windows 10 on multi-boot system.

> Many programs are designed to be installed to C

None of the programs I've used since the days of Windows 98 required installing to C, including Office, Visual Studio, ... . I do have some
programs that install some or all content to the same partition as the currently running OS, while most programs allow most or all content to be installed on any partition. I don't have any programs that force an install to C.

That doesn't mean that there aren't a lot of programs that require install to C, it's just that I'm not using any of them.

Win NT, Win 95, Win 98, Win Me, Win 2000, Win XP, ... to Win 7 all have the option to install to any partition and without changing the OS partition to C . In the case of Win 7, the install needs to be started from XP or XP 64 (for Win 7 64 bit) to do
this. Win 10 is the first Windows that apparently doesn't offer this option. My guess is that it's just an install issue and that Win 10 could run from any partition, any letter, if it wasn't for the install restriction.

The other issue is that I boot into Win 7, install the Win 10 cd-rom, run setup, and off it goes copying files, without any dialog to ask if I want to do clean install or upgrade. Maybe it gets there eventually, but I aborted it after several passes. I'll
try the USB version later to see if that helps.

The USB utility was another issue, I had to run diskpart and then clean to clear out the USB MBR, otherwise, the USB image create utility would fail.

So back to the other guy asking about this, so far it doesn't seem that Win 10 can be installed without it relettering it's partition to C. It doesn't effect the partition letters seen by other OS'es when you multi-boot into them. I'm wondering how the image
backup from Win 10 describes the boot partition when it doesn't have a letter.

 

Cliff - as I recall, you used Macrium to clone Disk 0 onto Disk 2 - right? What is your plan for that? Are you just keeping that there as backup in case, when you install the SSD, things go pear shaped on you?

If so, I won't disrespect your choice but would suggest you might want to do that clone over again just before putting in the SSD in so that form of backup is more up to date.

Other than that, back up to an external drive would be best in the long run going forward - I think you've already posted you have an external hard drive for storing backup.

 

What makes me head scratch is the two recovery partitions. I have the recovery starter and a single 25 gig recovery partition.

 

When I upgrade my OS to Windows 10, it made two recovery partitions, one was active, 2nd one was not, both were 350 gigs, I removed both, and made them part of my primary partitions. I used MiniTool from boot disk. Gained back 700 gigs to my primary partition. I see no use for any recovery partition IF you make complete backups.

 

Also looks like you have 3 recovery partitions on your C drive!!!!! Wow......Thought mine were messed up before, but yours is worse.
But as long as it works for you and don't brother you. That would drive me nuts. *Smile