Solved Deleting recovery partitions

This is a my experience with deleting excess recovery partitions after reading this post:


Here's my Disk Management screen before I started:



It looks like this because my C: went through updates from 7 ==> 8 ==>10 ==>11. I"ve never done a clean Windows install since doing that with Win7.

I decided to try deleting the excess Recovery Partitions which I believed were all those to the right of the 621 MB partition. So I cranked up an Admin Terminal and did this:



I should have investigated the need to retain the EFI partition, but I didn't. I just kept going. After deleting all the other Recovery partitions I ended up with this:



This looked pretty good to me (yes, I know there are ways to reclaim the Unallocated spaces) so I rebooted and (of course) got a B(lack)SOD. So I ran Macrium Reflect's Fix Boot Drive routine and rebooted again. This got me my system back OK. Now it looks like this:



I guess the moral to this story is don't mess with things unless you've got a good way to recover.

Edit: Now my Macrium backup file reduced in size from 33.9 GB to 32.4 GB and the backup time went from 7:42 to 6:38.

Not quite sure what all the above was about (short attention span, sorry, too much to read and take in - apart from 3 recovery partitions ... Wha???), but ....

After a new install + full update, but before any software was installed (and same was for Win 10), I always do a Macrium image, then install AOMEI and/or MiniTool, and delete the recovery partition. Then restore the resultant unallocated space to another partition.

Never had any regrets.

ADDENDUM. Rationale : never had any need to use the recovery, and find that there are too many posts in multiple threads and forums across the www about users with failed recovery attempts.

If I'm dealing with someone else's computer, I do the original image twice ( 2 separate images saved on 2 separate external devices -- tin-foil hat theory no. 176), and then remove the recovery partition. Inexperienced users ending up with borked systems because of confusion between repair, recovery and restore were the meat and bread of my IT consultancy experience in a previous life.

This is my experience with deleting recovery partitions:

1. reagentc /disable
2. Delete ALL recovery partitions
3. reagentc /enable

Still not an ideal partition layout. The current guidance from MS is to have the recovery partition as the last partition following the Windows partition. The latest versions of Windows 10 and Windows 11 now have the ability to shrink the Windows partition and grow the recovery partition DOWNWARD to use that free space when required. As a result, once you have the correct layout, Windows should never need to create an additional recovery partition again. Here is an example of what it looks like when done correctly:



You could use a program to reorganize your partitions or do as NavyLCDR suggested, or, if you ever perform a clean install of Windows again in the future, Windows will create the partitions correctly if you install using the guidance below. Note that this assumes starting off with a blank destination disk where the previously existing partitions have already been removed or where you remove the existing partitions during installation of Windows:

1) If you perform a full manual install, Windows will setup partitions correctly. By "full manual" I mean that you boot from your thumb drive, DVD, etc. and manually go through the installation procedure without automating the installation.

2) If you automate the installation using an autounattend.xml answer file, OMIT the section in the answer file that specifies the disk to install onto and the partition layout. I won't go into the specific details (unless you want me to), but the short of it is that when using an answer file you normally specify the Windows partition be placed last which is precisely what you do not want. By omitting the disk to install onto and the partitioning layout setup will ask you for the location to which it should be installed, just as in a manual installation. The entire rest of the installation would still be automated, however.

NOTE: There are ways to automate the entire process, but it still involves removing those sections from the answer file and creating a script to perform the disk partitioning. If you want this info, let me know and I can provide it, but it is WAY easier to simply manually specify what disk to install onto as noted above.

Very good feedback - thanks. I tried LTCDR's suggestion and got this:

PS C:\Users\Birk> reagentc /info
Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) and system reset configuration
Information:

Windows RE status: Disabled
Windows RE location:
Boot Configuration Data (BCD) identifier: 79a4e131-26db-11ec-a889-0492264c4655
Recovery image location:
Recovery image index: 0
Custom image location:
Custom image index: 0

REAGENTC.EXE: Operation Successful.

PS C:\Users\Birk> reagentc /disable
REAGENTC.EXE: Windows RE is already disabled.

PS C:\Users\Birk> reagentc /enable
REAGENTC.EXE: The specified path was not found.

I reckon I could spend a fair amount of time trying to resolve that problem - whatever it is - but I'll probably wait a while and maybe get MiniTool and reposition the partitions.

You deleted the active recovery partition. There is no benefit now to keeping any recovery partition.

Oh. Hmmmm. I thought I read that the active recovery partition was the one that was next to the C: one.

But ok, so should I delete everything except the C: and the EFI one? And if so, what's the best way to create a valid recovery partition?

This is an option that may work:

a) Make a free Macrium backup image disk 3
b) Clean install Windows 11 on disk 3
c) Restore only C: data partition
d) Use Macrium boot repair as needed

I've seen instructions in the past for manually creating a new Recovery partition. I think it can be done.

Maybe try reading this recent thread.

There may be other easier instructions to be found somewhere.

There is an easy way to restore the recovery partition. Just download latest iso, mount it and run setup.exe to do an repair installation.

Birk said:

Oh. Hmmmm. I thought I read that the active recovery partition was the one that was next to the C: one.

But ok, so should I delete everything except the C: and the EFI one? And if so, what's the best way to create a valid recovery partition?

Click to expand...

The active recovery partition is the one that reagentc /info says it is using. There is no guarantee as to which partition it will be.

Near the end of this thread are instructions to reinstall the recovery environment:

Birk said:

what's the best way to create a valid recovery partition?

Click to expand...

You have the answer here:

Good news - I was able to recreate the Recovery partition like this (thanks again to LTCDR for the reference):

PS C:\Users\Birk> reagentc /info
Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) and system reset configuration
Information:

Windows RE status: Disabled
Windows RE location:
Boot Configuration Data (BCD) identifier: 79a4e131-26db-11ec-a889-0492264c4655
Recovery image location:
Recovery image index: 0
Custom image location:
Custom image index: 0

REAGENTC.EXE: Operation Successful.

PS C:\Users\Birk> reagentc /enable
REAGENTC.EXE: Operation Successful.

PS C:\Users\Birk> reagentc /info
Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) and system reset configuration
Information:

Windows RE status: Enabled
Windows RE location: \\?\GLOBALROOT\device\harddisk3\partition2\Recovery\WindowsRE
Boot Configuration Data (BCD) identifier: 742c8395-5f83-11ec-976d-0492264c4655
Recovery image location:
Recovery image index: 0
Custom image location:
Custom image index: 0

REAGENTC.EXE: Operation Successful.

So now my drive looks like this:


I've read various posts that say the EFI partition should be either first or last, but it's clear it can be anywhere. So it looks to me like I need to get Minitool and interchange the position of the 621 MB Recovery partition and the 1.06 GB unallocated partition, and then expand the C: partition to include the 1.06GB that's currently useless.

Some posts have implied that the EFI partition may need to get bigger, so I'm OK with leaving 452 MB unallocated for that eventuality (if it ever occurs.) The contents of my C: drive (Windows & apps only, no data) is only about 58MB, so I need not be greedy for space.

My system partitions have always been 100 MB

Minitool really does make it easy to do these things. Now my drive looks like this:



This looks good to me. For some odd reason my wallpaper image disappeared, but that's easily fixed.

Windows will create new recovery partitions during an upgrade when there is insufficient space in an existing recovery partition.

So in the opening thread over time Windows had found insufficient free space and installed new recovery partitions during upgrades.

Compared to Windows 10 there will be fewer featured upgrades for Windows 11.
So there will be fewer tests of the recovery partition.

If you want to see whether the dynamic data / recovery partition is working a test can be made.

The test is performed by making an in place upgrade repair:

If an in place upgrade is performed and Windows needs more than 643 MB for the recovery partition the C: partition should shrink and the recovery partition should expand.

If Windows does not need more than 643 MB for the recovery partition then you will not be able to test the dynamic relationship. Or the recovery partition could become smaller.

If Windows needs more than 643 MB for the recovery partition and the dynamic relationship is not working an additional recovery partition will be created.