Windows 10: Recovery partitions on SSD

1511 is November 2015 release for both mobile and PC and 10586.36 is the latest PC build number (although there may be another minor release later on today).

Which is the new partition? The 449MB one? Most likely the WINRETOOLS partition is not being used.

If you'd like to tidy it up you need to compare diskpart and reagentc /info in an elevated command prompt to see which partition is registered as the recovery partition. In this example my recovery partition is partition 1. Code: Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.10586] (c) 2015 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. 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: 9c34aef9-9152-11e5-9c76-00155d013517 Recovery image location: Recovery image index: 0 Custom image location: Custom image index: 0 REAGENTC.EXE: Operation Successful. C:\WINDOWS\system32>diskpart Microsoft DiskPart version 10.0.10586 Copyright (C) 1999-2013 Microsoft Corporation. On computer: HALI-WIN10 DISKPART> select disk 0 Disk 0 is now the selected disk. DISKPART> list partition Partition ### Type Size Offset ------------- ---------------- ------- ------- Partition 1 Recovery 500 MB 20 KB Partition 2 System 200 MB 500 MB Partition 3 Reserved 16 MB 701 MB Partition 4 Primary 32 GB 717 MB Partition 5 Primary 55 GB 33 GB Partition 6 Primary 23 GB 88 GB Partition 7 Unknown 619 MB 112 GB DISKPART> exit[/quote] Once you have figured out which partition is being used you could if you like delete the other one, move the recovery to the end again and extend C. If you do this you should check again with reagenc /info that it is still registered correctly.

 

Thanks for that. Yes the new partition is the 449mb one. I didn't re-name the Windows partition EaseUS did that. I'll re-arrange them later if it's not needed.

 

No need to rearrange partitions until you run out of space (and even then you'd only save a tiny bit).,

It is probably worth running reagentc /info just to check that it says status "Enabled" though - just on the off chance you need to use the recovery tools one day.

 

The 449mb is the recovery partition and it is flagged as enabled.

Probably my OCD kicking in but this is what EasUS is showing now.





Think I might tidy it up later, after getting another Macrium image.

 

To answer you question. Can recovery Image and Macrium boot disk be on the same portable HD ? The answer is yes.

• Shrink the portable to 1GB (Actually you only need ~260 MB for rescue disk, I just make it even 1GB). Create a partition and format as FAT32, use dispart to set it "Active"
• Run Macrium and create a rescue ISO.
• Use either Winrar, Winzip or 7-zip to extract the ISO to the 1GB partition created above
• Reboot the PC and from the boot menu, select this partition with UEFI prefix to boot into Macrium rescue.

NOTE: You can do this with either internal or external HD and it is faster than booting from USB stick or DVD.

The screen shot below shows my 120GB USB HD with the 1GB partition containing Macrium Rescue and the first partition is where to store the backup image formatted with NTFS:





EDIT: If you really want to make all partitions to look as if to do a fresh install without losing all infos and apps from your C drive then use this link:
Solved Help With Partition Management - Windows 10 Forums

 

Thank you. I just ran Macrium and the option to create rescue boot asked where to place it and I just pointed to the external hard disk. It created a MBR boot sector and all is well (see my last image above). I have tested it to ensure it works OK. I created a folder on the main partition on the portable and have, so far, created a couple of full images in there.

 

Great. That works too. However, I'd like to separate the Rescue environment so that it would be in one place and I also remove the drive letter to make it hidden so I don't accidentally delete it.

 

If your OCD is kicking in then you have to find yourself the correct answer and stop looking at GUI front ends.

Download gdisk and have a look. Code: C:\Users\Hali\OneDrive\Programs\Gdiskgdisk64.exe 0: GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.0 Partition table scan: MBR: protective BSD: not present APM: not present GPT: present Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT. Command (? for help): p Disk 0:: 236978176 sectors, 113.0 GiB Logical sector size: 512 bytes Disk identifier (GUID): 94EB0CDB-062F-4EF9-BDED-04F144D52C7C Partition table holds up to 128 entries First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 236978142 Partitions will be aligned on 8-sector boundaries Total free space is 264277 sectors (129.0 MiB) Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Code Name 1 40 1024039 500.0 MiB 2700 2 1024040 1433639 200.0 MiB EF00 EFI 3 1435648 1468415 16.0 MiB 0C01 Microsoft reserved ... 4 1468416 69982207 32.7 GiB 0700 Basic data partition 5 69982208 186220543 55.4 GiB 0700 Data 6 186482800 235708599 23.5 GiB AF00 El Capitan 7 235708600 236978135 619.9 MiB AB00 Recovery HD Command (? for help):[/quote] What you have (from your euseus screen print) is someones interpretation of the GPT partition table.

What you get from disk management is less (as it deliberately ignores some partition types).

You also need to consider is some OS or partition programs don't like the end of previous partition to bang up against the start of the next (so they leave 128MB or so).

You can check this by comparing the number of the end one sector and the start of the next and seeing if the is a difference is 1 or not.

Without a doubt the best place to check (or learn) about how this works is here

 

The 128 MB partition is always there. It is deliberately hidden in disk management. The other tiny unallocated spaces are simply to ensure new partitions start on proper zone boundaries.

No more changes should be made.

 

What are we talking here ? Windows 8 or Windows 10 ? In Windows 10 fresh install, there's only 16MB MSR reserved partition. Not 128MB.

 

Windows 10.

I understand and accept the view that no further changes should be made it's just that I hate to see nearly 2GB of disk space going begging particularly as I bought the largest SSD that Dell offered and that is already half full and I've only had it a week. *sarc

 

Wrong. For Eufi, the MSR is 128MB see

Understanding Disk Partitions

 

Actually, you could delete the last one.

You will always have up to 1GB used by the three small partitions.

 

But I have a 700GB a 300GB as well as the WINRETOOLS partition which is 867MB. The first two are unused and unallocated.

 

Try to install Windows 10 fresh then come back and tell me that I am wrong.
You are referring to an article that was published in 2009. Things have changed.