24h2 - safe to remove recovery partition?

raddirad · Oct 21, 2024

Hi

I am currently exploring Win11 24h2.
I noticed that the setup.exe creates a Recovery partition after C.
Is it safe to disable winRE (reagentc.exe /disable)
delete the recovery partition via diskpart
enable winRE (reagentc.exe /enable)

Can this be done and the system runs as intended ot is there a reason to have the recovery on a separate partition?

Regards
Mathias

FreeBooter · Oct 21, 2024

There is no screenshot of Disk Management for us to see which recovery partition you want to delete.

johnp · Oct 21, 2024

raddirad said:
Hi

I am currently exploring Win11 24h2.
I noticed that the setup.exe creates a Recovery partition after C.
Is it safe to disable winRE (reagentc.exe /disable)
delete the recovery partition via diskpart
enable winRE (reagentc.exe /enable)

Can this be done and the system runs as intended ot is there a reason to have the recovery on a separate partition?

Regards
Mathias

The recovery partition is created by Windows.

Do not delete it.

raddirad · Oct 21, 2024

johnp said:
The recovery partition is created by Windows.

Do not delete it.

Can't I disable winre, delete the partition and enable winre again?
Then the Recovery should be stored in C:\Recovery\WindowsRE\

FreeBooter · Oct 21, 2024

In this video, i will guide on how to delete the recovery partition.

Ghot · Oct 21, 2024

raddirad said:
Can't I disable winre, delete the partition and enable winre again?
Then the Recovery should be stored in C:\Recovery\WindowsRE\

We need to see a screenshot of Disk Management.
Giving advice... blind is not a good plan.

To post a screenshot on this forum...

1. Take the screenshot, (or camera pic), edit it as desired, save to your desktop as .png or .jpg (max. size = 2MB)
2. Left click in your post, where you want to place the screenshot.
3. Click the Attach Files button at lower left, browse to your pic and click Insert.
4. After clicking Insert, I usually choose the Thumbnail (smaller) option, or there is a Full Image (larger) option.

If the "new" PrtSc key function is not to your liking... here is how to set it back to it's classic function...

Enable or Disable Use Print Screen Key to Open Screen Snipping in Windows 11 Tutorial

This tutorial will show you how to turn on or off to use the Print Screen key to open screen snipping for your account in Windows 11. The Snipping Tool app includes a built-in screen recorder and allows you to quickly take and annotate screenshots, photos and other images with your pen, touch...

www.elevenforum.com

You need to stretch out the Disk Management window, so we can see everything... this is what mine looks like...

raddirad · Oct 21, 2024

FreeBooter said:
In this video, i will guide on how to delete the recovery partition.

I know how to delete it. This is the way I will do it. I am just wondering if a separate RE partition is a neccessity or if the Recovery can be stored on the C partition as it was in the past

Bree · Oct 21, 2024

raddirad said:
I am currently exploring Win11 24h2.
I noticed that the setup.exe creates a Recovery partition after C.
Is it safe to disable winRE (reagentc.exe /disable)
delete the recovery partition via diskpart
enable winRE (reagentc.exe /enable)

Can this be done and the system runs as intended ot is there a reason to have the recovery on a separate partition?

Yes, you can do that. Congratulations on knowing that the reagentc /disable command is an essential first step, too few do that and loose their only copy of winre.wim as a result.

raddirad said:
Can't I disable winre, delete the partition and enable winre again?
Then the Recovery should be stored in C:\Recovery\WindowsRE\

Yes. on enabling recovery Windows attempts to create a new recovery partition or use an existing one, if this is not possible it will put winre.wim in C:\Recovery\WindowsRE\ and create a BCD entry pointing to it there.

Bree · Oct 21, 2024

raddirad said:
I am just wondering if a separate RE partition is a neccessity or if the Recovery can be stored on the C partition as it was in the past

I think the default was always to try using a recovery partition first, then the C: drive as a fall-back if that was not possible. I have at least one machine with it on C: - makes no difference where it is, as long as the BCD points to it you can boot to the recovery environment.

johnp · Oct 21, 2024

My recovery partition is just 775 MB.

There is no need to relocate it.

raddirad · Oct 21, 2024

Ghot said:
We need to see a screenshot of Disk Management.
Giving advice... blind is not a good plan.

To post a screenshot on this forum...
1. Take the screenshot, (or camera pic), edit it as desired, save to your desktop as .png or .jpg (max. size = 2MB)
2. Left click in your post, where you want to place the screenshot.
3. Click the Attach Files button at lower left, browse to your pic and click Insert.
4. After clicking Insert, I usually choose the Thumbnail (smaller) option, or there is a Full Image (larger) option.

If the "new" PrtSc key function is not to your liking... here is how to set it back to it's classic function...

Enable or Disable Use Print Screen Key to Open Screen Snipping in Windows 11 Tutorial

This tutorial will show you how to turn on or off to use the Print Screen key to open screen snipping for your account in Windows 11. The Snipping Tool app includes a built-in screen recorder and allows you to quickly take and annotate screenshots, photos and other images with your pen, touch...

www.elevenforum.com

You need to stretch out the Disk Management window, so we can see everything... this is what mine looks like...

View attachment 113397

Ghot · Oct 21, 2024

raddirad said:
Can this be done and the system runs as intended ot is there a reason to have the recovery on a separate partition?

I deleted my Recovery partition, long ago. Upgrading to 24H2 put it back. I removed it again.

I removed mine completely, on 24H2. Nothing broke.
BUT... I use 3rd party backup software religiously, so I don't really "need" a Recovery partition.

How to Delete Recovery Partition in Windows 10

How to Delete Recovery Partition in Windows 10 In Windows 10, there can be a Windows recovery partition or computer manufacturer OEM factory recovery partition available on the Windows disk. The Windows Recovery Partition allows you to boot into Windows r

www.tenforums.com

raddirad · Oct 21, 2024

johnp said:
My recovery partition is just 775 MB.

There is no need to relocate it.

View attachment 113402

it's not about the size, its about the act that it does exists purely by some setup.exe automatisms. When I was installing 23h2 via Netboot there was no recovery partition.

raddirad · Oct 21, 2024

Ghot said:
I removed mine completely, on 24H2. Nothing broke.
BUT... I use 3rd party backup software religiously, so I don't really "need" a Recovery partition.

Our customers can reinstall windows easily and usually don't need a recovery partition. I just wanted to make sure removing the partition itself and moving the recovery back to C won't break anything on 24h2

Ghot · Oct 21, 2024

raddirad said:
Our customers can reinstall windows easily and usually don't need a recovery partition. I just wanted to make sure removing the partition itself and moving the recovery back to C won't break anything on 24h2

I removed it from C:\ too.
And doing that didn't hurt 24H2.

But, as I mentioned... I use 3rd party backup software.

Silvio · Oct 21, 2024

With the current low prices of SSD, is deleting recovery partition, really necessary !?

Recently my daughter returned to Uni, (> 200 miles away), and I got phone call, few weeks ago, at 00:15hrs Monday am, saying her Win 11 23H2 Laptop, would not boot.

Over the phone. after exhausting various boot repair options, I conceded, her doing Windows automated recovery was only route.
No data lost, as she used Chrome/Google account for storing docs.
She performed Windows restore over phone with me, then, got machine running as required.

Impossible, (I think), if recovery partition was gone.

Bree · Oct 21, 2024

raddirad said:
Our customers can reinstall windows easily and usually don't need a recovery partition. I just wanted to make sure removing the partition itself and moving the recovery back to C won't break anything on 24h2

Nobody needs the recovery environment to be on the PC's own hard drive. Even with winre.wim completely deleted there are other ways to boot to recovery, an install usb, or a recovery drive usb for example (you'd need to make the recovery drive before deleting winre.wim, of course). The only thing that breaks by deleting it is booting to the recovery environment.

Megahertz · Oct 21, 2024

raddirad said:
Hi

I am currently exploring Win11 24h2.
I noticed that the setup.exe creates a Recovery partition after C.
Is it safe to disable winRE (reagentc.exe /disable)
delete the recovery partition via diskpart
enable winRE (reagentc.exe /enable)

Can this be done and the system runs as intended ot is there a reason to have the recovery on a separate partition?

Regards
Mathias

Yes, it is safe to disable the recovery environment on the Recovery partition (reagentc.exe /disable) and delete the Recovery partition but you can't enable winRE (reagentc.exe /enable) as you won't have the Recovery partition.
When you disable the recovery environment (reagentc.exe /disable) on the recovery partition, the recovery environment is moved to C:\Windows\System32\Recovery. You will still be able to boot to WinRE as when it was on the Recovery partition.

So you may ask "Why recovery environment on the Recovery partition"?
The answer is Bitlocker. If C: is encrypted you won't have access to it unless you boot from a non encrypted partition, load the encrypted key and then access the C: partition.

Almighty1 · Oct 21, 2024

While on the subject, have a question.... When my Dell XPS 15 9570 arrived, it contained a recovery partition which is the 1.06GB partition as the system came with Windows 10 Home Edition back in May 2019.

The 1.06GB Recovery Partition per MiniTool Partition Wizard appears to show BitLocker as the Filesystem and not NTFS like 1.14GB and 1.20GB Recovery partitions, the 1.20GB is the current recovery partition. I have did a in-place repair upgrade install atleast 6 times with Windows 11 Beta, does Windows only allow a maximum of 3 recovery partitions to exist at one time? The other question is, is there a reason the original recovery partition is Bitlocker and not NTFS? Thanks!

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