Windows 10: Will it use the same system reserved partition or create a new one?

Last week when I clean-installed 1607, a 500 MB system reserved partition was created. There had been no such partition when I was running 1511.

Question 1: Next time when I clean-install Windows, will it use this same partition or create a new one?
Question 2: Next time if I update Windows to a newer version, will it use this same partition or create a new one?

:)

 

Install Windows 10 without creating System Reserved Partition

Hello,

Is there a way to install Windows 10 without letting Windows create a new partition for System Reserved? Where Windows files and boot system can be installed all in the same partition without having a new one.

Thanks.

Yousif

 

Partitions before Clean Install of Win 10

I deleted the System Reserved partition created by Win 8.1 and delete the Win 8.1 windows install. . The new System Reserved partition created by Win 10 install is 500 Mb, larger than the one created by Win 8.1.

The OEM partition was left well enough alone.

 

Hello, what you do when you clean install is under your control. You want to install to unallocated space on your disk, so you delete unwanted partitions.

A normal set of partitions for an EFI-based installation is
Recovery (450Mb), System (16Mb), Windows, EFI (100Mb).
Sizes may vary a bit.

It seems that when upgrading (e.g. 1511 -> 1607) Windows uses some 500Mb of unallocated space to create a second Recovery partition. The old one is redundant, as I understand it. Perhaps that is left to support reverting to the old build. I've not researched it.

The Windows partition is the same one on upgrading. You need about 20Gb (for Windows.old) + 10Gb spare.

 

Next time when I clean-install Windows, how can I prevent it from creating a new system reserved partition? How can I make it re-use the present system reserved partition?

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3086249
According to the above, it seems that Windows uses the old system reserved partition during the upgrading.
Am I right or wrong?

 

The question is why is it so important to re-use the present system reserved partition? Is there something custom you have put in it that you don't want to lose? The best way to do a completely clean install is to delete every partition on the hard drive and install to the unallocated space. Windows setup will create a new system reserved partition. If you leave the old system reserved partition there before installing, Windows setup will likely use it, but it will also probably create a new recovery partition and you might end up with one more partition and more hard drive space used up than if you just installed to a completely unallocated disk.

Correct.

@dalchina, since the OP has a 500MB System Reserve Partition, his computer is likely using legacy BIOS and MBR partitioned disk.

 

If the present system reserved partition is not re-used, I will have to extend it into the unallocated space resulting from deleting the Windows partition and then delete the whole extended partition before clean installation.
If I simply delete both partitions, will they automatically merge into a single unallocated space, into which Windows will be installed?

I confirm this.

 

To avoid any confusion with partitions when doing a clean install, after doing a backup copy of any data I don't want to lose or that exists nowhere else, I use the free GPARTED LiveCD to wipe all partitions from the HDD putting it back to its as-shipped [from the factory] condition then do the clean install, sets all the defaults. I don't mess with the small partitions which usually are 500MB or less. But then my first computer back in '92 had a 120MB HDD, second upgrade was to a 210MB HDD and third was to 3x 345MB HDDs and it's been going that way ever since, always bigger, better, faster.

 

I will not do that because many files are on drive D. I will only delete drive C, i.e. the Windows partition, and the system reserved partition. Will they automatically merge into a single unallocated space after the deletion?

 

The question would then be, is D: a partition on the only physical HDD in the system or is it a separate HDD? I use 2 physical HDDs [C: and D:] most of the time so as to keep my data stored separately from the Windows drive. By default at install time, my boot/system drive contains C: and has both an unnamed Basic 450MB Recovery partition and a System Reserved 100MB partition, neither has a drive letter assigned [by default] and do not show in File Explorer.

 

The former.

 

In that case I'd leave well-enough alone in fear of screwing things up beyond the point of recovering. I find such small partitions are actually quite unimportant for normal use.

 

Can anyone answer the following question?

 

Yes. Which is the answer to both questions. If you delete two partitions located next to each other, it will result (merge) in just 1 unallocated space. If the partition containing your D: drive data is at the end of the disk like it should be, then to do a clean install you delete all the partitions except the D: drive partition. All the partitions deleted will become 1 big unallocated space. You pick that unallocated space to install Windows to and let Windows setup create the partitions it wants inside the unallocated space.

You don't need to use any third party software like Linux and GPARTED. All you have to do is select the custom install option during setup. The next screen will show you a list of hard drives and partitions on your computer. On that screen you can delete all the partitions on the hard drive you are installing to EXCEPT your D: drive data partition.

 

In the past, the partition screen shown by Windows 7 setup showed the newly created system reserved partition.
Last week when I clean-installed 1607, the partition screen did not show it. I think this is because Microsoft does not want users to delete it.

I will use GPARTED on my Linux Live DVD only when something untoward happens.

That is the case on my hard disk.