Windows 10: Numerous recovery partitions after a few formats and installations

Hi,
Since I got my laptop I messed around with it quite a bit. As a result, I have way too many recovery partitions.

How do I know which ones are relevant? And which ones can be deleted safely?

*If that's the only option, I'm OK with just wiping absolutely everything and reinstalling with factory settings.


Thanks a lot.

:)

 

Unable to use 11.6GB recovery partition on my new Alienware

Hi Sagar,

Thank you for contacting Microsoft Community.

To understand the issue better, I would need more information from your end.

• How exactly are you trying to create recovery image?
• Was Windows 10 pre-installed on the computer when you purchased it?

The recovery partitions are created by the OEM when you purchase Windows preinstalled with the computer. The partition was created to recover Windows if needed. The recovery partition is installed to rollback the computer to factory settings.

Did you get any recovery disk with your computer when you bought it with Windows?

If yes, then you may format the recovery partition and use the recovery disk in case you need to recover Windows. The formatted partition will provide you with extra storage on your computer.
You may also consider formatting the recovery partition if you do not plan to reinstall Windows on your computer.

You may have to format the Recovery Partition before using it.
Right-click on the recovery partition and click on
Format.

Warning: Formatting a volume will destroy any data on the partition. You won't be able to perform Factory Reset or Recover Windows using Recovery Partition after formatting it.

Hope this information helps. Reply to the post with an updated status of the issue so that we can assist you further.

 

windows 10 reinstall after upgrade disk format issuewhen attempting to reinstall windows 10 error message "cannot install on this partition, this partition is GPT format

Tring to reinstall Wndows 10pro on a HP laptop after a complete reset due to issues with the update and .net framework prevented installing software. Laptop was Windows7 originally then upgraded to W 8.1Pro then to W10Pro. No bootable OS recognized on
startup. Created a usb drive with W10Pro for reinstall

and get stuck at partitions page with no partition available for install. Error message "Cannot install Windows on this partition. This partition is GBT format" on several. Or partitions are reserved or recovery partition. Attempted adding new and formatting
but will not format to NTSF. Any guidance will be much appreciated Thanks

 

The standard recovery partition that Windows 10 creates is 450 MB in size which I don't even see on your drive so it looks like all of those must be manufacturer specific. You can more than likely delete all of them and the only thing that will be affected is your ability to do a factory reset back to the original full factory load of software. You can see which partition Windows will use for the troubleshooting menu by opening a command prompt (admin) and running:

reagentc /info

Be careful, though because there is a hidden MSR partition in there that does not show up in disk management, so you actually have to use either MiniTool Partition Wizard to see actual partition numbers or the diskpart command in a command prompt (admin) window. See my example below.

The WindowsRE location is the partition that Windows uses for the troubleshooting menu. The image location is the partition will load a custom image from during a reset and may not be present. My image location is set to a Windows 10 image contained on the second hard drive on my computer - notice it is on harddisk1 and not harddisk0.


Code: C:\WINDOWS\system32>diskpart Microsoft DiskPart version 10.0.14393.0 Copyright (C) 1999-2013 Microsoft Corporation. On computer: JOHN-LAPTOP DISKPART> select disk 0 Disk 0 is now the selected disk. DISKPART> list part Partition ### Type Size Offset ------------- ---------------- ------- ------- Partition 1 Recovery 450 MB 1024 KB Partition 2 System 100 MB 451 MB Partition 3 Reserved 16 MB 551 MB Partition 4 Primary 446 GB 567 MB DISKPART> exit Leaving DiskPart... 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\partition1\Recovery\WindowsRE Boot Configuration Data (BCD) identifier: fcaab811-8717-11e6-843d-aa73efa5da58 Recovery image location: \\?\GLOBALROOT\device\harddisk1\partition3\Sources Recovery image index: 1 Custom image location: Custom image index: 0 REAGENTC.EXE: Operation Successful.[/quote]

 

Hey, thanks a lot.





I tried to color code to make it clearer.
What confuses me the most, is:

- What's the use of the green "System" partition given the big C one is also system? "EFI"?
- Is it possible to re-create the red Lenovo partition when resetting the PC?
- The light blue "OEM Partition"?

Thanks for clarifying.

 

SOURCE: Lenovo Yoga Pro 2 Partition Cleanup









Partition 1 - Recovery (WINRE_DRV) - 1000MB

• Windows RE bootable (for Recovery Mode)
• Used when booting into Windows Recovery (Win RE) environment

Partition 2 - System (SYSTEM_DRV) - 260MB

• System UEFI bootable (EFI/Windows boot menu)
• UEFI boots this partition, it contains Windows NTLDR, HAL, Boot.txt, and some drivers (Windows will not boot without this)

Partition 3 - OEM (LRS_ESP) - 1000MB

• Lenovo Recovery System (EFI bootable)
• Lenovo One Key Recovery (OKR) button boots into this partition, which allows to do factory restore

Partition 4 - Reserved (MSR) - 128MB

• Reserved Microsoft partition for GPT-based disks
• Must exist and must be 128MB, used by Windows when moving/changing partitions through Disk Manager

Partition 5 - Primary (Windows8_OS) - 218GB

• Main C: drive - contains Windows, installed programs, etc

Partition 6 - Primary (LENOVO) - 4GB

• Lenovo D: drive - contains mainly drivers and installers for some bundled apps

Partition 7 - Recovery (PBR_DRV) - 13GB

• Lenovo factory reset image
• Used by One Key Recovery system to reset laptop to factory condition

 

There you go...looks like the explanation @Avocado provided and the article linked to is about the best info there is!

 

Thank you, NavyLCDR and Avocado. Extremely helpful. In recovery through a USB stick, I ended up using "clear" while in select disk 0 -> list partition, then renewing the uniform unallocated space. Windows automatically created the necessary partitions.

 

That's the best way to do a clean install!