Windows 10: Which partitions can I delete?

Hey it was you that made the comment!!!! I've been doing this a LONG TIME too sir. The way I suggested is the proper way to setup ANY hard drive. I don't really care if you don't follow the correct procedure ....user has a right to know the correct way. Then its their choice.

 

It really doesn't matter... but have it your way.

 

Not that I have extensive experience in this specific context, but I thought all that mattered given a choice of SATA ports was that, if the ports had different speed capabilities, you choose a port for your device that gets the device up to its potential. Example, if you have 2 x 3 Gb/s ports and 2 x 6 Gb/s ports and you buy a SATA III SSD, make sure you hook it up to a 6 GB/s port.

Is there more to it than that?

 

From all the reading I've done.. no. That's about it. Match the speed of the port currently with the drive speed and your set.
But most if not all modern MB's use SATIII now

 

OK, sounds right. But, not being an expert on that, I'm all ears... guess really we ought to hear from OP before this thread goes down the proverbial rabbit hole.

(yeah, corrected my speed units in prior post from GB/s to Gb/s, just so...)

 

I've had my PC set up with the c in the 1 and 0 SATA and I noticed no difference in speed.
I'll try it again tomorrow morning and report back but I don't expect to see any real difference.

The only issue I can see is if someone does a clean instillation and the forget that their data is assigned to 0
and they delete that drive.

It can happen..

The only issue that I can see if someone does a clea

 

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\partition5\Recove
ry\WindowsRE
Boot Configuration Data (BCD) identifier: b06b6c05-aa9e-11e5-833b-0c8bfd7403
19
Recovery image location:
Recovery image index: 0
Custom image location:
Custom image index: 0

REAGENTC.EXE: Operation Successful.



I appreciate the most vigorous responses. As I indicated Macrium Reflect will not run and the error message says because of too many partitions having to do with shadow copies. I think I best find something in place of Macrium Reflect.

I have used Acronis TI (it’s time to change) for several years and the C partitions have been restored several times. I don’t know how that might relate to the SATA connections, but no hardware has been changed.

Arc, if I need all 4 partitions on disc 2 to run Windows I think you’re telling me I need to make my 2 separate identical storage hard drives (originally named D:\ and E:\) into a single partition.

Word Man. The Partition 5 on disc 2 appears to be Windows RE. However I see only 4 partitions on disc 2. Which, if any would be safe to delete?



OldMike65. Like you, I am bothered by the confusing designations. How do you know about the SATA cables and how would you suggest I straighten things out.

 

You only see 4 partitions in Disk Management because what is probably your 3rd partition, the Microsoft System Reserved (MSR) partition (should be 128 MB if it originated in Windows 8/8.1) will not show in Disk Management. That's how I knew your last partition shown in DM would be numbered 5.

If you execute the following lines from an elevated command prompt:

diskpart
select disk 2
list par

You will see 5 partitions listed, the 3rd (I predict) being the MSR.

The very first partition (old WinRE from prior operating system) is the most expendable partition there. The only way deleting that one would be of consequence is if you still have the option (within 30 days of upgrade) to roll back to the old OS, then that partition wouldn't be there to provide advanced boot and recovery options under the old OS.

5th partition can be deleted but understand that this will do away with the present Windows Recovery Environment (advanced boot and all those options) capabilities.

2nd partition has to stay.

3rd partition is what Microsoft apparently intends for highly specialized and future usage and you'll will find its necessity is often debated, sometimes hotly, here at TenForums. Mine from Win10 clean install is only 16 MB so I just let it be and don't get into the debate.

4th stays of course.

Hope that helps you decide what you want to do.

BTW: Regarding Macrium Reflect - you may want to try checking the options (under Other Tasks/Edit Defaults) to not use VSS, this sometimes provides a workaround against the kind of error message you mentioned above. Here's what I mean:

 

Well I guess you can leave them the way they are. Looks like I'm the only one that's puts primary drive on sata 0 or sata 1 (on some motherboards they start with #1 , most have 0 thou. Those numbers are on your motherboard next to every sata port.
So just leave them plugged in the way you have them.

 

Lol, no, mate. D and E are two different physical disks. Why will you merge them?

I told you to convert E to GPT format. It seems to be a MBR disk because of the active mark, and so it is not like the other disks there.

And I was wrong, you may delete the 300MB recovery partition of Disk 2; that seems to came from a previous windows installation. The 450 MB recovery and 100MB EFI are needed there alongwith C.

 

Hi Mike. *Smile Just a little IMHO .... if Disk2 is set as the first boot device, and all the SATA ports are of the same speed, the wrong ordering of disks should not be a big deal.
The proper arrangement of the disks is desirable, but not essential.
But that is just my thought. There is all the possibilities that I am thinking it wrong.

 

Nope I think you are correct if all the sata ports are same speed. But I like things in order. not looking like scrambled eggs. *Smile

 

Proper ordering looks and feels good; and it obviously reduces the possibility of a discrepancy/conflict/issue.

Some people are just too lazy to arrange the room properly, and I am one of them. *Zip *Redface

 

I removed the recovery partition without consequence. This was a do - up from Windows 8.1.
Word Man I removed the checkmark from the Macrium VSS but it still didn’t work so I will try some other program.
My Macrium is a little different from the snip that you showed me, we may have different editions.



Here is what it looks like now. . This discussion has gotten away from me a little bit and I would like to thank you all and close this thread.







I don't know how to mark this as solved, but it is, and thank you all again. Please mark it as solved.