Windows 10: Multiple Recovery Partitions on my disk + Remove deprecated OS installation

Issue 1:


I had purchased a Windows 8 installation with my Dell laptop, i upgraded it to windows 8.1, and later to windows 10 when it was initially released. But at that time, it was riddled with bugs, so i reverted back to windows 8 and continued to use 8 without any upgrades. I had low demands

I now reinstalled Windows 10 recently since my disk was showing 100% usage and i thought it might be related to old drivers.


With the backstory of my previous Installations on my PC before you, i present the partitions.

DISKPART> select disk 0

Disk 0 is now the selected disk.


DISKPART> list partition


Partition ### Type Size Offset

------------- ---------------- ------- -------

Partition 1 System 500 MB 1024 KB

Partition 2 OEM 40 MB 501 MB

Partition 3 Reserved 128 MB 541 MB

Partition 4 Recovery 490 MB 669 MB

Partition 5 Primary 98 GB 1159 MB

Partition 6 Recovery 555 MB 99 GB

Partition 7 Recovery 451 MB 99 GB

Partition 8 Recovery 450 MB 100 GB

Partition 9 Recovery 350 MB 100 GB

Partition 10 Primary 420 GB 501 GB

Partition 11 Recovery 9 GB 921 GB


As can be seen i have multiple partitions on my Disk.


Upon going through a few forums topics i realize that Windows 10 creates recovery partitions for advanced troubleshoot options. But since i may have some deprecated recovery partitions which do not serve any purpose i would want to remove them.

Though the forum do provide Information about what the problem is, but the process of how to remove these partitions seemed lost on me.

It seemed to me I should be safe to remove partitions 7,8 and 9 but i would like a second informed opinion.

Some people said that the initial recovery partition partition 4 in my case may still be under use for boot by the system so should not be removed.


C:\WINDOWS\system32>reagentc /info

Windows Recovery Environment Windows RE and system reset configuration

Information:


Windows RE status: Enabled

Windows RE location: \\?\GLOBALROOT\device\harddisk0\partition6\Recovery\WindowsRE

Boot Configuration Data BCD identifier: 31c6170e-a0a7-11ea-8b00-a2ef7dfd79e3

Recovery image location: \\?\GLOBALROOT\device\harddisk0\partition11\DELL\Image

Recovery image index: 1

Custom image location:

Custom image index: 0


REAGENTC.EXE: Operation Successful.


If someone could help me figure this out it would be helpful.


Issue 2:

While using my windows 8.1, a few years back i installed ubuntu on a separate partition, to test out it's working. I messed up the configuration setting on that somehow, so i removed the partition on which i installed ubuntu. I do not remember if i did anything else besides that to remove it. but I think it wasn't removed properly as the option to boot into ubuntu still is visible during boot if i press F12 to show boot options.


Can this be removed? Would i need to edit the bootloader? If so, how? and is it safe to edit such?

I think i saw a tutorial somewhere asking to make the bootloader partition visible and then removing the entries for the deprecated OS, but it did not provide information as to how to make the bootloader not be visible in the explorer again.


Thanks for reading the Issues.

I apologize, for this question has already been asked, but as i said, I went through searching for answers on this forum and others, but the Instructions were a bit unclear.

:)

 

Will deleting the factory partition render the recovery disk useless?

More than likely it is of no use NOW . The recovery disk is nothing more than drivers and some BS . You will not get the OS and recovering from a recovery disk only works if the drive partition is fine and has been untouched by any one .
The best thing to do is delete all the partitions and just install windows on the HDD make your own recovery disk and your done not to mention you get all that drive space back .

 

1709 Fails to install and how to remove multiple recovery partitions?

In #2 I suggested you see this:



- which indicates helpful log files, e.g. setuperr.log, setupact.log

from this:
Upgrade to Windows 10 Installation Upgrade Tutorials

And Minitool Partition Wizard -not Disk Management- will show all partitions, as I've mentioned.

 

How To: Create recovery partition.

it worked when i copied all the files of the disk to the recovery partition i created, but i had to use WinPE tab to add the entry.

Type: WIM Image (Ramdisk)
Name: Recovery
Path: Z:\Sources\boot.wim
and hit Add Entry
I tried it in VirtualBox and it worked.
At first, it would add a second "Windows 7" entry to the list, but when the installation is finished, the old one is deleted. (I formatted only C: partition)