Windows 10: THREE Recovery partitions?

Is this normal?




I would think ONE would be enough?
Kevin

:)

 

Black screen after boot since Sept 11th

Can you force start it in recovery mode then start in Safe mode?

Start Windows 10 Recovery mode using three consecutive power-ups (ie power up, when you see the Windows logo and/or rotating circles, power down by holding down the power button for three seconds). Do this three times - if this works you should see
Recovery mode.



If that doesn't work, try rapidly pressing F8 as you power up and see if that triggers Recovery screen.



In Recovery mode, get to Troubleshoot > Advanced options > Startup settings, Restart then select option 4 (Safe mode)

 

Windows not starting after May update

See if it works in Safe mode

Start Windows 10 Recovery mode using three consecutive power-ups (ie power up, when you see the Windows logo and/or rotating circles, power down by holding down the power button for three seconds). Do this three times - if this works you should see
Recovery mode.



If that doesn't work, try rapidly pressing F8 as you power up and see if that triggers Recovery screen.



In Recovery mode, get to Troubleshoot > Advanced options > Startup settings, Restart then select option 4 (Safe mode)

 

One is more than enough for one instance of Windows.

You could run reagentc /info to see which is being used and delete the other two.

Are you dual booting though? I see your picture says disk 2. If you are then they could be recovery partitions for different instances.

 

My C:/ drive (SSD) has always been labeled #2...I have no idea why.

I am not dual booting per se. I use Macrium Reflect and do have the option at bootup to enter ITS recovery mode.

Does that mean I keep the last 2? The reagentc /info command produced this:
C:\WINDOWS\system32>reagentc /info
Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) and system reset configuration
Information:

Windows RE status: Enabled
Windows RE location: \\?\GLOBALROOT\device\harddisk2\partition3\Recovery\WindowsRE
Boot Configuration Data (BCD) identifier: 0cf1e747-9791-11e5-8c85-40e23015522f
Recovery image location:
Recovery image index: 0
Custom image location:
Custom image index: 0

REAGENTC.EXE: Operation Successful.


Thanks for all your help, lx07

 

This is the interesting part:

You'd have to compare to diskpart to be sure (as some partitions don't show in disk management screen) - enter

• diskpart
• select disk 2
• list partition

You will either see partition 3 is the first of the 450 MB recovery partitions ( which means the last 2 are not used) or it is your 110GB C partition (which means none of them are used).

The standard layout for EFI is something like this Code: DISKPART> select disk 0 Disk 0 is now the selected disk. DISKPART> list partition Partition ### Type Size Offset ------------- ---------------- ------- ------- Partition 1 Recovery 450 MB 20 KB (this is Recovery) Partition 2 System 100 MB 450 MB (this is EFI) Partition 3 Reserved 16 MB 551 MB (this reserved partition isn't shown in Disk Management) Partition 4 Primary 110 GB 567 MB (this is C drive)[/quote] My guess is that each time you upgraded (from 7 or 8 to 10 and then from 10 build 10240 to build 10586) it is making a new recovery partition as it doesn't find it where it expects it.

You could shuffle the partitions order around with MiniTool Partition Wizard (you would have to reregister WinRE with reagentc after) or as you use Macrium just delete them all if you are short of space. If the first of the 3 is being used you'd need to move it anyway to expand C drive. If you aren't short of space could of course just leave them as they are fairly small.

Let us know what (if anything) you'd like to do...

 

OP's report of partition 3 also seems to imply they have no MSR on this disk (if it's pointing at the first WinRE) - that's normally between EFI and OS, isn't it?

Would really need to see diskpart / list par from OP to clarify situation.

 

If the MSR exists in the normal place between EFI and C then partition 3 is C drive (WinRE can be registered on C drive).

If MSR doesn't exist in normal place (or at all) then partition 3 is the first of the recovery partitions so yes, need to check diskpart.

 

Thanks very much, I will definitely get back to you...

 

You guys are out of my league, but here's what I get:

 

1) So you have no MSR (Microsoft Reserved Paritition) which is normally part of the GUID Partition Table (GPT) disk layout. This may or may not be a problem down the road - opinions will vary widely - but I realize this isn't part of your question up to this point.

2) Partitions 4 & 5 are not in use. You could then follow-up on next to last paragraph in lx07's post # 4.

 

Thanks, Word Man. I'll see if Ix07 responds before doing anything drastic.
I completed a full back-up a few minutes ago, just in case *Wink

 

You can delete partitions 4 and 5. Then with mini-tool partition magic you can move partition 3 all the way to the left and expand C to get the extra 900MB.

As @Word Man says you should have a 16MB MSR partition between partitions 2 and 3. I'm a bit vague on what this is for. MS says it is for "future use" or some such thing Windows and GPT FAQ - Windows 10 hardware dev

I'd leave it for now if your system is OK - if it causes a problem in future you can think about it then. If you did want to do it now you would have to delete partitions 4 and 5, move partition 3 all the way to the left, expand C to use all of the unallocated space except 16mb, then move C all the way to the left. Then make a MSR in the 16MB unallocated space which would then exist between partitions 1 and 2 and finally re-register WinRE in partition 4. It is certainly possible but a bit fiddly.

 

Thanks, I'll let you know what happens!

 

Hi,

Quite likely because the sata cables are reversed.

Windows setup recreates a Recovery partition each time a new OS install is done. It leaves the old recovery partition(s) alone as it "thinks" they may be needed should you decide to roll back the new OS to a previous version.

Cheers, *Wink