Solved How to move Recovery Partition

lafargeotte · Oct 13, 2022

Hi,

My recovery partition is the first partition on my drive, with the Windows partition next and this may be preventing me upgrading to 22H2.

I would like to move the recovery partition to after the Windows partition. Is there a guide how to do it please, or can you direct me to where I might find how to do it.

Thanks in advance.

Sir_George · Oct 13, 2022

lafargeotte said:
Hi,

My recovery partition is the first partition on my drive, with the Windows partition next and this may be preventing me upgrading to 22H2.

I would like to move the recovery partition to after the Windows partition. Is there a guide how to do it please, or can you direct me to where I might find how to do it.

Thanks in advance.

The link below should provide you with the information you need.

How to Move Windows 10 Recovery Partition without Data Loss?

If Windows 10 Recovery partition is in the way of extending C: partition, you can move recovery partition in Windows 10 safely with a free tool.

www.diskpart.com

The article heading says it's for Windows 10, but if you scroll down the page, you will see it applies to both Windows 10/11. I am not suggesting this will resolve your issue, but it provides the answer to your question.

idgat · Oct 13, 2022

lafargeotte said:
Hi,

My recovery partition is the first partition on my drive, with the Windows partition next and this may be preventing me upgrading to 22H2.

Thanks in advance.

What makes you think this? I doubt whether that's the reason.

What method/steps are you using to try to update/upgrade ... (I never know whether the move to 22H2 is an update or upgrade ...?

)

lafargeotte · Oct 13, 2022

idgat said:
What makes you think this? I doubt whether that's the reason.

What method/steps are you using to try to update/upgrade ... (I never know whether the move to 22H2 is an update or upgrade ...? )

Can I ask you to please read my other thread: Update to 22H2 fails at 87% on 3 incompatible (almost identical) Laptops with no error log.

Megahertz · Oct 13, 2022

Let's use Windows commands to do it

Open a CMD window as administrator and type:
Reagentc /disable (to disable the current Recovery)
diskpart
select volume c
shrink desired=850
create part primary
format fs=NTFS quick label=Recovery
set id=de94bba4-06d1-4d40-a16a-bfd50179d6ac
assign letter=W
exit
Reagentc /setreimage /path W:\Recovery\WindowsRE
diskpart
select vol W
remove letter=W
list disk (take note of the windows drive number n)
select disk n (replace n with the windows drive number found above)
list part (take note of the old recovery partition number m)
select part m (replace m with the recovery partition number)
delete partition override
exit
Reagentc /enable

Megahertz · Oct 13, 2022

Please post a whole window Disk Manager image of your drives. Don't forget to expand the columns so we can read them. How to Post a Screenshot of Disk Management
If you have a MiniTool or AOMEI Partition use it instead or Windows disk manager.

Now (was different on the past) the correct partitions order are:
- EFI - Fat32 - 100M
-MSR - RAW - 16M
- C: - NTFS
- Recovery - NTFS - 850M (Windows used to create smaller partition and when needed a bigger partition created a new one. That is why sometimes you find a drive with many Recovery partitions.

If your drive doesn't have the layout above I suggest you fix it with Macrium Reflect
- Create a drive image backup and save on an external drive.
- Boot from a Macrium boot drive
- Clean the windows drive
- Open the image backup and drag and drop the partitions in the right order from the image to the drive.

lafargeotte · Oct 13, 2022

Disk management screenshot:

Berton · Oct 13, 2022

This is my Dell Vostro Desktop new in April with factory-installed Win10 Pro then Upgraded to Win11 Pro Version 21H2 then to Version 22H2 not long ago. It came with the 512GB Disk 1, later added the Disk 0 and Disk 2 is in a USB Drive Dock for diagnosing issues. The first partition on Disk 1 is required for booting.

lafargeotte · Oct 13, 2022

Megahertz said:
Please post a whole window Disk Manager image of your drives. Don't forget to expand the columns so we can read them. How to Post a Screenshot of Disk Management
If you have a MiniTool or AOMEI Partition use it instead or Windows disk manager.

Now (was different on the past) the correct partitions order are:
- EFI - Fat32 - 100M
-MSR - RAW - 16M
- C: - NTFS
- Recovery - NTFS - 850M (Windows used to create smaller partition and when needed a bigger partition created a new one. That is why sometimes you find a drive with many Recovery partitions.

If your drive doesn't have the layout above I suggest you fix it with Macrium Reflect
- Create a drive image backup and save on an external drive.
- Boot from a Macrium boot drive
- Clean the windows drive
- Open the image backup and drag and drop the partitions in the right order from the image to the drive.

I have Macrium Reflect 8.0.6867 Windows PE but there is no disk or partition information available with it.

ThrashZone · Oct 13, 2022

Hi,
That 587 unallocated what happened to it ? I'd bet it was the active recovery partition not the 578mb in front of C

Windows has been installing recovery partitions at the end of the disks for a while now because they can't or won't enlarge recovery partitions in front of the disks
So think you killed the active recovery partition and are now stuck with an older one in front.

Best I believe you can do is move boot files to C and kill the 587mb in front and extend C into the 587mb unallocated space at the end
You can also after moving boot files to C move C to get rid of the 587mb in front of C

Windows will again create another recovery partition at the end of the disk.

I'd make a system image of the entire disk first though.

Bootmgr - Move to C:\ with EasyBCD - Windows 7 Help Forums

SIW2 · Oct 13, 2022

I think there might be a way to access cmd from macrium pe. I havent looked at macrium pe for a while, but I expect there is.Then you can use diskpart commands.

Or you can include some other programs in the same pe, a partition manager for example, quite easy to do.

Or if you can get to notepad from macrium pe you can use the file>save dialog to browse to a partition manager on some attached disk and run it from there .

Or if there is some kind of explorer thing in the pe you could do it with that instead of notepad.

lafargeotte · Oct 13, 2022

I have managed to get it to work, and the partitions are now in the correct order.
I will attempt the update/upgrade to 22H2 tomorrow and report back how it goes.
Thanks guys.

ThrashZone · Oct 13, 2022

Hi,
Upload another screen shot.

idgat · Oct 13, 2022

You could always regularly image your drive (with Macrium Reflect and/or AOMEI Backupper), keep the last 3-4 images for safety, then delete the Recovery partition altogether and expand the remaining partion(s) to use the space.

(Above is personal preference - never been a big fan of Windows Recovery option (or Restore/Repair options, for that matter). More bad (unsuccessful) experiences with these options than with image restores)

lafargeotte · Oct 14, 2022

ThrashZone said:
Hi,
Upload another screen shot.

idgat · Oct 14, 2022

On a 256GB SSD, on the end that ½GB is negligible, but a bit wasted.

Overall, still looks a bit messy/untidy .... ?

lafargeotte · Oct 14, 2022

The partitions are now ok, but it did not help with the upgrade/update problem.
I will mark this thread as solved. Thanks to all for your help.

zbook · Oct 14, 2022

lafargeotte said:
I have managed to get it to work, and the partitions are now in the correct order.
I will attempt the update/upgrade to 22H2 tomorrow and report back how it goes.
Thanks guys.

This is the default disk drive partition architecture after a clean install:

diagram of default partition layout: system, msr, windows, and recovery

If you want to troubleshoot failure to upgrade then consider opening a new thread.

If you want to have the above architecture then you may be able to clean install Windows and restore the Windows partition.