Windows 10: Windows 10 upgrade creates too many partition

Recently I noticed that after upgrading to the latest version of Windows 10 anniversary on my HP notebook, the partition table on my disk has been changed (including the creation of 842 MB of unallocated space, and the resize of the partition containing windows 10 from 200 GB to 199.09 GB). I attached the screenshot of Macrium reflect.





The only partitions that I'd like to keep are the following:

• WINDOWS C: os partition;
• HP Data F: created for storing data;
• RECOVERY D: HP recovery partition.

Now I'd like to know among the remaining partitions what are those can I delete and what are instead the partition should I keep to prevent issues allowing windows 10 works properly ?
I'd rather avoid to run a clean windows 10 installation.




:)

 

if you upgrade to Win 10 from a OEM Win 8 Computer be aware

if you upgrade to Win 10 from a OEM Win 8 Computer be aware

if you have a OEM Windows 8 computer (Hewlett-Packard,Acer,Toshiba ect.) and installed Windows 8.1

it adds a extra 350mb recovery partition

now if you had to restore back to Windows 8 from the OEM recovery Partition the extra 350mb recovery

gets left on the hard drive

now from a fresh install back to Windows 8 from the OEM recovery partition you upgrade to Windows 8.1 it adds another 350mb recovery partition so now there is 2 350mb recovery partition and if you keep going back to Windows 8 from the OEM recovery partition
and upgrade to Windows 8.1 it adds another

Windows defrag see's these 350mb recovery partition as Local Disk (\\?\VOLUME and can not defrag them

i asked this question on July 8

upgrade to Win 10 but Too Many Recovery Partitions from Win 8.1

Jayant Gupta a Microsoft Support Engineer in this post say's

" i would like to provide you with the information that, if you have another HD then I would suggest you to re-install the OS and get ready to upgrade to Windows 10. Having too many reserved partitions might cause Windows 10 upgrade to fail "

upgrade to Win 10 but Too Many Recovery Partitions from Win 8.1

please be aware if you plan to upgrade to Windows 10



James

 

windows 10 won't update

Kate,

OK, that clarifies the issue for me....no problem.

My questions about your device's history were to determine how complex that history is. Upgrades upon upgrades create a hard drive partition junkyard because every upgrade overlays a copy of the new operating system on top of the old OS. This eventually
affects performance and creates other problems down the road including
receiving updates successfully.

But your device still has a Windows 10 digital license received when Win10 was installed or upgraded on it. You never lose this digital license even if you return to a previous edition of Windows i.e. Win7.
The license is based on your hardware and motherboard and kept in a MS data bank. If and when you reinstall Windows 10 or Repair/Upgrade Win10, that license will reactivate automatically.

When System Restore points do not complete successfully, you may have too many partitions on your HDD that complicate a successful System Restore.....too many partitions from too many upgrades.

• You could perform another Repair Upgrade installation....that might help
HERE or,

• You could perform the superior Clean Installation of Windows 10 HERE

Regards,

Wayne

 

Please clarify if you're using legacy BIOS or UEFI and whether your disk is formatted as GPT or MBR.

Given that, we'd know what to expect. Personally, I don't recognise what you've got.

This is a UEFI/GPT set of partitions. Note: you should have more than one partition created by the installation of Win 10.
Arbitrarily deleting some of these can remove features or stop your PC booting.





How did you install Win 10 originally? Upgrade from Win x? Or as a clean install to unallocated space?

Or did you buy your PC with Win 10 pre-installed?- It look as if it had an OS pre-installed as you have a manufacturer's recovery partition (which is much bigger than the Win 10 450/500Mb recovery partition).

 

Thanks for your reply dalchina, I will try to provide all missing info. I have an Hp notebook with windows 8.1 originally pre-installed, afterward I upgraded to windows 10; recently I update to windows 10 anniversary edition. I'm using UEFI and my disk is formatted as GPT. Hope this helps to target what are unnecessary partition.

 

Don't know about the other partitions, but the Recovery is NOW a waste of space -- as the Win10 Upgrade is known to corrupt the HP recovery information and render that function useless.

Your best bet, at this point, is to create your own Recovery Media -- and for that, I recommend using Macrium Reflect.

Once you have that, you can remove the Recovery partition.

 

Well if you upgraded to Windows 10, eventually, sooner or later, you will want to do a clean install anyway. The sooner, the better *Smile

 

MBR installation:

• 500MB System Reserved partition
• C: Drive

GPT installation:

• 450MB recovery partition
• 100MB EFI System Partition
• 16MB MSR partition
• C drive.

Of these you should expect to see the second from what you say, + any other partitions that were present before you upgraded to Win 10.

It would be instructive to see what you see if you do a SHIFT left click restart.
Do you have the troubleshooting options available?
(Safe mode, Command Prompt, System Restore...)

And for reference from MS:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/win...ive-partitions

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/win...ive-partitions

- in the midst of the technical stuff are basic parameters for the partitions.

 

@tsam

I suggest you get yourself a copy of a nice, free partition viewer and manager.

Best Free Partition Manager for Windows | MiniTool Partition Free

The Macrium picture is ok, but doesn't show most of the particulars on your drive, just what it's going to backup. Disk Management is also ok, but again, doesn't show the whole picture.

MiniTool is designed to show everything about all partitions and give you every option you could possibly want. Picture is also much clearer.....graphical in top pane, detail in lower. And, there's an additional option to download a bootable version for emergencies. (No, I don't work for them *Smile)

Give it a try and post another pic of what it shows. Here's what it will look like (my box):

 

Yep Partition Wizard is the best.

 

You could delete the 2 partitions on the far right, then slide your data partition to the right, then leave nothing but unallocated space to the left to clean install Windows 10 on.

The Bootable CD is the safest and easiest way to work with partitions.

But now with Partition Wizard 10 they make you jump through hoops to get it *Sad I don`t like that *Redcarded

No matter what you do, if you install in UEFI, you will end up with multiple partitions after installing Windows 10, as explained in reply #6

Right now your drive is pretty much a mess *Sad

 

If your WinRE partition isn't big enough then it creates new partitions when your upgrade. It isn't clear which is the currently registered partition - it could be 5 or 7 or even 1.

In addition to above show a print of reagentc /info from elevated command prompt and it will tell you which it is using. Code: Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.14393] (c) 2016 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. C:\Windows\system32>reagentc /info Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) and system reset configuration Information: Windows RE status: Enabled Windows RE location: \\?\GLOBALROOT\device\harddisk0\partition1\Recovery\WindowsRE Boot Configuration Data (BCD) identifier: 60a76a2a-e726-10e6-9763-d4823e10b645 Recovery image location: Recovery image index: 0 Custom image location: Custom image index: 0 REAGENTC.EXE: Operation Successful. C:\Windows\system32>[/quote]

 

[/quote] That's a quick way of finding it. In addition, MiniTool will let you explore un-lettered partitions, like the other small ones, and check the dates on the files. Helps to determine what's in there and what can be safely deleted.

 

Thank you all guys for your advices. Maybe I finally understood what happened to my drive: partition #1, partition #2 and partition #3 as described in this link Numerous recovery partitions after a few formats and installations

Partition #7 was the recovery partition which probably have to exist at the beginnig after WINDOWS partition (as described in this link Too many Recovery Partitions???), 842 MB UNALLOCATED SPACE and Partition #5 were respectively created when I upgraded first to WINDOWS 10 and then to WINDOWS 10 anniversary edition (probably because there is not enough free space available on the RECOVERY partition).

In short I will provide MiniTool and reagentc /info data, to target active and actually used partitions.

 

Good, @tsam! You're getting there!