Windows 10: Why Two Recovery Partitions??

All the partitions are highlighted in blue if that's any help. Does that mean they're all Active?

 

Nope. That means they are primary partitions. Post #9 tells you how to tell which one is the active recovery partition.

 

Yes, everyone has been telling you the same thing. It is normal to see two Recovery partitions of the same size. No need to argue about the why or how. It is not taking extra drive space, so why are you worrying so much about it.

It will state active for those partitions, because Windows needs them. As forwhy one in the front of the main partition and one after. That started with 8.

 

Hi,
One hint of a recent 450mb partition is it will be near or at the end of the disk
It can indeed be deleted if one does not expect to use system restore back to when it was created.

The 450mb next to the efi or Fat32 partition at the beginning of the disk I'd leave that one alone.
It may have boot files on it too.
I personally use free minitool to do this type of thing
Best Free Partition Manager for Windows | MiniTool Partition Free

 

This is what I see.

Windows RE Location...........\\?\GLOBAL ROOT\device\harddisk0\partition4\recovery\windowsRE

Boot Configuration Data (BCD) identifier: followed by a long series of numbers and letters.

Recovery Image Location

Recovery image index 0

Custom Image Location

Custom image index 0

 

yea,..I've got two of them,..one right at the beginning and the other one is right at the end - both at 450Mb each.

 

Hi,
Yep there you have it
The one on the end can be deleted.

 

This is very rude of you Bro. I'm 66 years old so my mind may not be as sharp as it used to be. Just trying to learn something here.

 

Do you have a Image Backup program such as Macrium Reflect? it is free.

Macrium Software | Macrium Reflect Free

Back up your system then remove the 450 MB that is in front. You can always restore with MR. Best to back it up to an external drive. That is if you want to remove it. This is the safest way.

 

Ok,..thank you,...

 

Yes,..I do have a system image backup and my original retail W10 installation USB plus two bootable ISO's on Flash USB for both Anniversary 1607 and Creators Update 1703.

 

You might break your advanced recovery menu if you do. You need to run the diskpart commands listed in post #9 to see exactly which partition is partition #4. I believe it will probably be the Windows partition itself, in which case you can delete both the recovery partitions.

However, if for some reason you don't have the hidden MSR partition, then partition #4 will be the last recovery partition and if you delete it you will break your advanced recovery menu. Which is no big deal really. I do custom installs of Windows 10 and don't have recovery partitions myself.

 

Yes,..you are correct,..I've followed your instructions and noted that partition #4 is indeed my actual Primary Partition with the Windows install on it.

I know you mention above that I can delete both of those recovery partitions but is there any reason to leave at least one or not really? I haven't gone any further yet in the Command prompt. Just looked re the partition number.

 

Neither recovery partition is being used for anything at the moment. However, it is not easy to recover the space taken up by the first recovery partition because the MSR partition is in the way. If you delete the last recovery partition, that space can easily be added to the OS partition.

 

Lokking at Disk Management agin I see this at the top of the page.

Disk 0

Partition 1 - hi-lights the first (450Mb Recovery Partition).

Partition 2 - hi-lights the 99Mb (EFI System Partition).

Partition 5 - hi-lights the other (450Mb Recovery Partition).

Does this still indicate that Partition #4 Not shown in this list is still the 'Active" one and I can still safely delete one or both of those 450Mb Recovery Partitions?

Thanks.