Solved 1 GB Recovery Partition?

Tink009 · Oct 10, 2021

I upgraded to Windows 11 using the Upgrade Assistant tool on October 4 on a Dell Inspiron 3793.. Since then, I've been poking around here and there and everything seems to be working fine.
I use Macrium Reflect 8 to backup my computers. One thing that caught my eye was that Macrium had marked one of the partitions on my C:\ drive in red. At first I didn't pay it any mind, but yesterday I took a closer look at it. Instead of a 500 MB Recovery Partition, I've got a 1.01GB Recovery Partition. I double-checked this in Disk Management and using DiskPart in a Command Prompt.
I've got backups of the computer and have made a Recovery Drive and am considering just removing the partition altogether. I'm curious as to why it is so large as I had performed a clean install of Windows 10 about 6 months ago and eliminated the Dell Recovery Partition. I'm certain the Recovery Partition wasn't that large before upgrading to Windows 11. I've attached screenshots to show what I'm seeing. Or is this something that is part of Windows 11?
My apologies if this isn't posted in the correct thread.

SIW2 · Oct 10, 2021

You could check reagentc /info to see if winre is in there.

Or just have look with diskgenius. It appears near full so you can use diskgenius to have a peek and see what is hiding there and potentially copy out any goodies..

DiskGenius Download Center | Free Download DiskGenius

Free download DiskGenius to recover lost data & partitions, manage disk capacity, backup Windows and personal data, and fix disk issues on PCs and Servers.

www.diskgenius.com

cereberus · Oct 10, 2021

Hard to say. Recovery Partitions are larger for sure, mine is 925 MB. I assume there are a lot more WinRe drivers embedded there.

Tink009 · Oct 10, 2021

I just checked reagentc /info. It's the Windows Recovery partition.

Ghot · Oct 10, 2021

Tink009 said:
I just checked reagentc /info. It's the Windows Recovery partition.

If it's just the fact that it's RED in MR bothers you, you can use the free Minitool Partition Wizard to increase it's size.
You would need to steal say, 500GB from C:\ to increase the Rec partition's size.
It's almost FULL, which is why MR is showing it as RED.

Best Free Partition Manager for Windows | MiniTool Partition Wizard Free

As an all-in-one free partition manager and disk manager software, MiniTool Partition Wizard Free helps manage disk space safely on Windows 11/10/8/7.

www.partitionwizard.com

Tink009 · Oct 10, 2021

Yes, I've resized partitions before. I use dark mode, so the red stood out. I"m just curious about it and was wondering if that is something about Windows 11. It's on a 2 TB SSD, so it is not an issue in regards to space. There's little information about what's under the hood in Windows 11 and I know some have notebooks with considerably smaller drives. My wife's PC has a 250GB SSD, for example.

Ghot · Oct 10, 2021

Tink009 said:
Yes, I've resized partitions before. I use dark mode, so the red stood out. I"m just curious about it and was wondering if that is something about Windows 11. It's on a 2 TB SSD, so it is not an issue in regards to space. There's little information about what's under the hood in Windows 11 and I know some have notebooks with considerably smaller drives. My wife's PC has a 250GB SSD, for example.

I noticed you had plenty of space.
Mine is bigger than normal as well. On Win 10 is was about 509MB on Win 11 it's 625MB.

I would just give it a bit more room. But if it "keeps" growing, I would then start to worry about it.

Windows 11 is still new...it's gonna have some oddities. :)

Tink009 · Oct 10, 2021

Ghot said:
I noticed you had plenty of space.
Mine is bigger than normal as well. On Win 10 is was about 509MB on Win 11 it's 625MB.

I would just give it a bit more room. But if it "keeps" growing, I would then start to worry about it.

Windows 11 is still new...it's gonna have some oddities. :)

Yep, I agree. Mainly I asked because I'm the one in the family who gets asked "Why is my computer...?"

Tink009 · Oct 10, 2021

SIW2 said:
You could check reagentc /info to see if winre is in there.

Or just have look with diskgenius. It appears near full so you can use diskgenius to have a peek and see what is hiding there and potentially copy out any goodies..

DiskGenius Download Center | Free Download DiskGenius

Free download DiskGenius to recover lost data & partitions, manage disk capacity, backup Windows and personal data, and fix disk issues on PCs and Servers.

www.diskgenius.com

Thanks. Think I'll try it out. Haven't heard of that one before. In the past, I used MiniTool Partition.

Ghot · Oct 10, 2021

Partition Wizard will let you "Explore" the recovery partition as well...
It doesn't let me DO anything with what I see during the "Explore".

The-Hive · Oct 10, 2021

I had a look at mine and and it's seems really weird. One recovery partition is 17.27GB and no partitions 2 or 3, maybe they were something to do with Alienware support assist which is gone now

Ghot · Oct 10, 2021

The-Hive said:
I had a look at mine and and it's seems really weird. One recovery partition is 17.27GB and no partitions 2 or 3, maybe they were something to do with Alienware support assist which is gone now

A lot of pre-built computers and laptops, have full blown "factory restore" partitions, for emergency situations.
Like when frantic customers call and scream at them.

PerpetualCycle · Oct 10, 2021

Well mine is 634 MB with 458 MB used. I have a data partition after it.

Tink009 said:
Thanks. Think I'll try it out. Haven't heard of that one before. In the past, I used MiniTool Partition.

Second the free version of MiniTook partition Wizard which is a very good partitioning tool. it would be interesting to see what is there.

Tink009 · Oct 21, 2021

I did a clean install of Windows 11 to cleanup a lot of junk that had accumulated on my computer. After I finished up, the Recovery Partition is now at 593 MB. I guess doing an upgrade using the Upgrade Assistant Tool kept the Windows 10 recovery partition and added the Windows 11 recovery environment to it, thus doubling the size.
It was never really an issue with the computer, just one of those odd things that pop up.

AddRAM · Oct 21, 2021

Every time you upgrade you`ll get a new Recovery partition.

Stigg · Oct 21, 2021

AddRAM said:
Every time you upgrade you`ll get a new Recovery partition.

If your Recovery partition is correctly placed at the end, you shouldn't get any additional ones.
The Windows upgrade will use that one again and resize it if necessary.

People with more than one Recovery partition most likely had their original Recovery partition incorrectly placed, so the Windows installer created another one. Incorrectly placed recovery partitions was a Microsoft installer flaw from previous operating systems. This has now been fixed. Going forward, this shouldn't happen again.

Kari explains it better.

Windows 10 Version 20H1 brings an important change in Windows Setup - Windows 10 Help Forums

Theres a fundamental flaw in Windows 10 Setup when performing a clean install on a new empty hard disk or SSD. The same is true when wiping the disk empty on a device containing a previous Windows 10 installation and deleting all partitions and performin

www.tenforums.com

NavyLCDR · Oct 21, 2021

I transfer WinRE to C: drive partition using the command:
reagentc /disable

Then I delete the recovery partition, then re-enable Window RE with:
reagentc /enable

I don't like having the separate recovery partitions. If they are on the same physical drive as the OS they are practically useless anyway.

hsehestedt · Oct 21, 2021

From this web site:

BIOS/MBR-based hard drive partitions

docs.microsoft.com

Important

To avoid bare metal recovery boot issues due to partition size, it is recommended that manufacturers allow the bare metal recovery feature’s auto generation script to create the partition used for the recovery WIM. If manufacturer’s wish to use a custom DISKPART script for partition creation, the recommended minimum partition size is 990MB and a minimum of 250MB of free space.

AddRAM · Oct 21, 2021

I got a 593MB Recovery partition on my clean install of 11 on my new 980 Pro 500GB.
Although Disk Management says it` 100% free, Partition Wizard and Macrium definitely find files on it.
I`m leaving it alone.

zbook · Oct 21, 2021

That's a large size recovery partition ( > 1 GB).

MiniTool has a right click option to view the contents.

Running sfc /scannow and dism /online /cleanup-image /restorhealth allow you to check the operating system and component store.

It appears to be a finding without any performance problems.

So it can be left as is.

In case you're concerned you can perform at any time an in place upgrade repair.

Having backup images you're prepared for unexpected problems.

It appears to be a finding only at this time but you can make extra steps as preventative maintenance.

There are tuneup and disk partition scripts for those that can logon to Ten Forums.
They have not yet been created as resources in Eleven Forum.

Tuneup_plus_log.bat ─ Click here to go to the BSOD batch repository to download and run this batch file.
DiskParInfo.bat - Click here to go to the BSOD batch repository to download and run this batch file.

Solved 1 GB Recovery Partition?

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