Windows 10: Why Two Recovery Partitions??

Yes it is not a anything. The size of these recovery partitions are a nothing and they are used when you have to do a repair. The only difference is that unlike Mac OS, you cannot download the OS to do a install yet at this point.

 

@Runnerbean
May be I can elaborate a little bit more.
There are reasons you'd get an extra Recovery partition:

• In Windows 8/8.1 The partition layout is:
  For GPT: 300MB Recovery, 100MB EFI System, 128MB MSR then C drive
  For MBR: 350MB System Reserved then C drive
  In Windows 10. The partition layout is:
  For GPT: 450 Recovery, 100MB E#FI System, 16MB MSR then C drive
  For MBR: 500MB System Reserved then C drive
  So when you upgrade from 8 to 10. There's not enough room for the new WinRE.wim (Basically is a WinPE with tools for troubleshooting), that's why MS create an extra Recovery at the end of C drive.
• Assuming that you started out with a fresh install of Windows 10 which has the correct disk layout. However, when you upgrade to the new version, the BCD (Boot Configuration Data) resides in the 100MB EFI System partiiton is partially corruped and could not find the Recovery partition so Windows create a brand new Recovery partition, set to correct GUID and put WinRe.wim in there.
• If you run an upgrade from the installation media (USB/DVD) by running setup.exe from it, Windows also creates an extra Recovery partition.

Having said that, in my experience I have never run into problem with Windows upgrade via Windows Updates. Never have an extra Recovery partition created from version 1607->1703->1709.

In Windows 10 version 1709. Once again, if you fresh install, you'll notice that the new partition layout is changed to:
For GPT: 500MB Recovery, 100MB EFI System, 16MB MSR then C drive.
For MBR: 550MB System Reserved then C drive.

Over time, I have seen hundred of the same questions so you are not alone.

It is easy to fix this problem and put it back to the way it should be so you won't have this problem with future upgrade.

 

Recovery Partitions are rather useless in Windows 10. All they contain is the advanced troubleshooting menu that you get when you hold down Shift and click on Restart. That's all it does in Windows 10. You can delete every Recovery Partition on your hard drive and you would never notice anything broken until you wanted to do a system reset, or use the advanced recovery menu to set up booting from a USB flash drive (which has never worked on any of my computers anyway) or reboot into UEFI setup. All off the functions provided by the Recovery Partition(s) are also provided by booting into a Windows 10 installation USB flash drive.

What reagentc /info is telling you is the path to the WinRE.wim file that Windows reboots into when you enter the Advanced Recovery menu by holding down shift and clicking on restart. Delete the partition that reagent /info says the WinRE.wim file is in and you just get reduced functionality from the Advanced Recovery menu. That WinRE.wim file and a couple of very small housekeeping files like reagent.xml is all that is in the Windows 10 Recovery partition. All the system files that are used to do a Reset of Windows, in Windows 10 are contained in the WinSXS folder under Windows.

Before Windows 10, the system files used to reset the Windows installation were actually contained in the Recovery Partition(s) which is why those partitions would be several GB in size.

If you delete the partition that reagentc /info is pointing to, this is what you get:

Code: Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.16299.19] (c) 2017 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. C:\Windows\system32>reagentc /info Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) and system reset configuration Information: Windows RE status: Disabled Windows RE location: Boot Configuration Data (BCD) identifier: 668387ed-ad21-11e7-b98a-a264a63b44cf Recovery image location: Recovery image index: 0 Custom image location: Custom image index: 0 REAGENTC.EXE: Operation Successful.[/quote] Consequently, the posts stating "you don't have two recovery partitions" and "don't delete that first one!" are pretty much just misinformation. Now, if you delete a factory recovery partition that is several GB in size and is from Windows 8 or earlier, then you will be losing the ability to do a factory restore back to the previous OS - which was probably broken by Windows 10 anyway.

 

I am running 10 on a 120gb SSD with at least 2/3rd's unused. Really do not need to do a full backup, just a incremental of those items that may change, or before a update.

 

Legacy BIOS v.UEFI has nothing to do with it.

 

I think it might behave differently when the 4 primary partition limit is reached. I seem to remember it working slightly differently, but cannot remember off top of my head how.

 

But, if there is a recovery partion already existing, legacy BIOS v UEFI has no bearing on whether to delete it or not.

 

Windows has a habit of creating extra recovery partitions. You don't really need them if you have a Windows recovery disk to boot from.

I delete old recovery partitions as follows (backup your PC first!):

• Run reagentc / info from an admin command prompt. This tells you the location of the recovery partition.
• Use MiniTool Partition Wizard Free to peruse the contents of the recovery partition and confirm which is the current one from the file dates.
• Delete old recovery partitions at the end of the drive. I would leave old recovery partitions at the start of the drive alone in case you make your PC unbootable by moving the boot partitions.
• Move the wanted recovery partition to the end of the drive and extend the C: partition to use any spare space.
• Reboot and run reagentc /info to check the recovery settings. You might need to use reagentc /enable to reset it.
• Select Restart+ Shift key to check the recovery options are operational.

 

I saw a case where an upgrade to 1709 had repeatedly failed, and there were maybe 10 or more Recovery partitions...!

Also just wondering if the old Recovery partition is retained in case the user restores the previous version.

 

In Disk Management when looking at the 'C' Drive partitions, I see in the top section, Disk 0, Partition 1, 2 and 5. Clicking on each one hi-lights the relevant partition in the image below it.

Why doesn't it show Partitions 3 and 4 in either the top section or the Drive image of Disk Management? The only way to view that seems to be by entering the Command Prompt and entering diskpart to take a look.

Lastly,..why doesn't Disk Management show which partition is the 'Active' one? Again, the only way to find that out is by doing Command Prompt and entering reagentc /info.

 

Fyi, I just noticed a (new) 2nd recovery partition on my system after updating Windows 10 Pro from 1607 to 1703 this week.

What is weird is that the new one is not 450MB like the first one, but is 854MB instead.

I only noticed this because I was updating my Macrium Reflect backup definition file, and I noticed an extra, unchecked partition on my Windows drive. I assume it was unchecked because the partition wasn't there when I created the backup definition in 1607.

When I ran the command "reagentc /info" I determined that my new partition (Disk 0 Partition 5) is my active RE now.

The definition in Macrium was still backing up the now inactive RE on Disk 0 Partition 1, and excluding the newly active one.

So went ahead and adjusted the Macrium definitions to include all partitions on my Windows drive. Not gonna poke this thing, just leave it alone, LOL!

 

My test machine was OEM Win7 before upgrading to 10 (1511). All four mbr partitions were already in use...

How does Windows boot to advanced recovery option e.g. command prompt? (post #16)

Advanced Startup works just as it would with an actual recovery partition, and continues to do so since upgrading to 1607, 1703 and now 1709.

 

The latest build can create a larger recovery partition. You can use MiniTool Partition Wizard with care to delete any old 450MB recovery partitions, move the new one to the end of the disk and extend the C: drive to use up any free space (see my post 51 above.

Reflect doesn't always check the right recovery partition so I know check and edit any backup definition files after a feature update.

 

Hi,
I'd guess because it is a hidden partition
If you check to see in folder and search options if you're set to see hidden folders files and drives it might show up
Otherwise use free minitool as I said earlier to see and delete them if you want too
Best Free Partition Manager for Windows | MiniTool Partition Free

 

You can see from my example the corresponding drives/partitions and how they are referenced in the two programs.