Windows 10: Partition Layout After Windows 10 Upgrade from 8/8.1

I have a question about the partition layout on my tem which originally came with Windows 8, was upgraded to 8.1, now upgraded to 10. I wanted to delete the OEM Recovery partition since it is useless now and reuse the space for C: partition; small, but would like to clean it up.

I have studied a number of posts regarding partition layout in Windows 10 and now I question whether I will have future issues with the way my tem is setup.

Here is my layout in Disk Management - Partition 3 is the old OEM recovery partition I don't need.




Then I noticed the hidden 128mb MSR partition is BEFORE the WIN_RE partition?




I did switch from a HD to a SSD using Acronis image store/restore, and I did verify the old HD layout is the same. Is this layout an issue?

The tem is running great and the only maybe related issue is that I can't create a Recovery Drive - I get an error stating that "Some required files are missing". I have installation media (USB) that I can use, so not a big issue.

Thanks for any advice.

:)

 

SOLVED: Can't enter my CD key / upgrade to Windows 10

The most likely solution would be to clean install Windows 8.1 after wiping your hard disk of all partitions. You would obviously need to have all of your data backed-up. Activate Windows 8.1 Single Language, then upgrade it to Windows 10 Home. Do you
know your Windows 8 Product Key?

This command should retrieve your Product Key for Windows 8.1 from UEFI:

wmic path softwarelicensingservice get OA3xOriginalProductKey

Obviously, something in your current setup is not working. It could be the partition layout needs to change, which would be fixed by wiping all partitions from the hard disk during a Windows 8.1 clean install.

 

Windows upgrade failed

I tried to upgrade Windows 8.1 with Mediacenter to Windows 10 Pro. After download the install stops and I got an error about the partition Windows is trying to upgrade.

I have a lot of partitions. The first one is a small system partiton from HP. On the second partition is Windows 8.1 installed.

In the past upgrading from windows to windows 8 gave no problems.

How can ik solve this problem.

Gr. Jaap

 

I was able to easily solve the issue of "mixed up" partitions on 3 tems using the suggestion contained in the following thread. I used option #1 in all 3 cases.

Solved Old Recovery partition - Windows 10 Forums

The tem I started this thread to address is a UEFI/GPT tem on which the WIN RE tools do not work in addition to having not quite the standard partition layout after several upgrades to get to the final W10 state.

The other 2 tems were BIOS/MBR tems on which WIN RE did not function, still had the OEM recovery partition, and had the (too) small Windows Recovery partition left over from previous installations. I believe the dysfunction on those tems is caused by Windows not installing the RE environment during an upgrade due to the exiting partitions.

I deal with a lot of customers who cannot undergo a fresh install due to not having 3rd party install media, license info, etc. So with this at least the partition layout and recovery tools are "clean".

Thanks topgundcp!