Windows 10: What to do about Recovery Partitions when installing/upgrading

This is a broad question which is prompted by my experience so far in figuring out the procedures for upgrading to Win10. There are several excellent tutorials setting out the options (in-place upgrade, clean install, etc). Among the various aspects which have to be considered are partitioning (if you happen to have several on your system); and whether and what to retain (settings, apps, data). All important matters. One of the areas that gave me pause for thought, and is perhaps less well explained, is what to do - or what options exist - in relation to recovery partitions. Not an area that I can claim to understand. But I think that when Win10 is installed (whether clean or upgrade?) it also creates a recovery partition .... which is unlabelled. Fair enough, and probably very useful. The complication arises when there is already a recovery partition on the system. And it seems that different manufacturers have different approaches to recovery. Back in the old days, I think the norm was to supply a bootable recovery CD/DVD. Now, it seems, most manufacturers set up a recovery partition - usually at the end of the drive, with OEM software installed to operate the process. I have come across two examples: a Samsung laptop with Win7, which has Samsung Recovery software and an unlabelled recovery partition, and Lenovo laptops, which have Lenovo Solutions and a partition which always has the letter Q; Unless the disk is wiped clean and Win10 installed in unallocated space, such existing partitions apparently remain. And Win10 then creates its own recovery partition, which does not replace the previous/existing OEM one. This can be confusing. It seems that the "old" or OEM recovery partition may become redundant (even if the OEM recovery software is retained during the upgrade), not least because their 'recovery' would reinstate the old (Win7) OS. So I just wonder....... is it worth covering this aspect in more specific terms in the install/upgrade tutorials to provide guidance on what to do about "old" or OEM recovery partitions? Is the obvious choice simply to delete it/them?

:)

 

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)

 

Win 7 sys. recovery partition

Ok everytime I install an OS I reformat the hdd and delete all partitions. When Win 7 is fully installed it creates it's own "system recovery" partition. But this time it didn't*Confused I know how to create partitions, so can I create one for the recovery and will the os recognize it as a recovery partition?

 

Lost recovery partition

Hello, I see that you are having issues with recovery partition. I would suggest you using the diskpart command in the command prompt. First, open up the comand prompt as an administrator, then type in diskpart. Now, type in list disk, and look for the
recovery partition drive. Follow the steps in the link below:

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-clean-and-fo...

Hope this helps, and let me know if you have further questions!