Windows 10: Windows 10 1903 and Insider preview 20H1, show 100% free space in recovery partition. (MBR...

I tried using Disk Management to see the space used in the recovery partition, but it shows always 100% free space.

Some old explanation state that it shows 100% free space because they are hidden partitions, but that looks inconsistent with the behavior on a UEFI machine with GPT disk versus a Legacy Bios machines with MBR disk.

Disk Management shows the correct value for free space in the UEFI GPT disk, while it shows 100% free space on the Legacy MBR disk. Why this wrong misleading indication ?

In both cases the partitions are hidden, but one case shows the correct value while the other case incorrectly shows 100% free space.

This inconsistent behavior happens with version 1903 Build 18362.295 and with version 20H1 build 18963.1000.

See samples below:


1) UEFI machine with GPT disk, Recovery partition shows 46% Free



2) UEFI machine with GPT disk, Recovery partition shows 20% free space




3) Legacy machine with MBR disk, recovery partition shows 100% 921MB free space, while there are actually 457MB of used space




Actual space used showing here 457MB out of 921MB



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:)

 

Windows 10 & Recovery Partition

If you fresh install Windows 10 on a GPT disk (UEFI boot mode enabled), it does create
an EFI, MRS (won't show in Disk Management), Recovery, and C: drive. If you install Windows 10 on
an MBR disk, it only needs System Reserved partition and C: drive. When you upgrade Windows 8.1 to 10, Windows 10 will create a recovery partition if your system reserved partition (MBR disk) or Recovery Partition
doesn't have enough disk space. As you know, Windows can only shrink a partition from the right side, so the 450 MB recovery partition is new created, which should not be deleted if you want to use recovery options. To see more details, you can read:

Recovery Partition Windows 10

 

No recovery partition in 1903?

Not a bug, a feature. This seems to have always been an alternative location Setup can use in place of a dedicated partition.

My test machine (System Two below) has never had a separate recovery partition, Reagentc /info shows C:\Recovery folder was used instead. I can confirm that it works as a fully functional recovery 'partition'. In my case it was a Windows 10 legacy MBR system that was upgraded to Windows 10 version 1511. With four MBR partitions already allocated for other functions Setup had nowhere else to put its 'recovery' environment so it used C:\ instead.

A clean install of 1903 on this test machine also had no separate recovery partition, but this may not be something new. A clean install of 1809 on another legacy MBR machine also used the C:\ drive for the recovery environment. Here I have mounted the Macrium image of its C: drive and explored C:\Recovery\WindowsRE\Winre.wim using 7-Zip.

 

Help! Data partition not showing under my computer

This is happening on a windows 2000 server. Our second partition of the system, for data is not showing under my computer. Here are the properties of it in disk management:





Now under logical drives its listed as F and shows free space available.

Suggestions on how to fix this?