Is it normal to have two recovery partitions?


rezpower

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On both my SSDs I have windows 11 installed and as marked on the picture below I have 2 WINRE_DRV (recovery drives).
Is it normal to have two of them and why would one be placed at the end of the last partition?
My guess is that probably one of them should not be in use!? Can it be deleted?Screenshot_20230805_043524.png
 

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I have 2 as well and I believe the second one was created when I upgraded to 22h2.
I read when Windows upgrades to next version it creates a new recovery partition if the previous recovery partition is not big enough for recovery partition size of the upgrade version. I just never took the time to look into it further and do anything with my old one.

You can find the recovery partition currently being used by the system by running this command in elevated PowerShell.
reagentc /info (In my case it shows the active recovery partition to be #4)
You can remove any unused one using diskpart if you choose. (or a third party app)

23H2 is around the corner so I expect it to create a third one. I'll deal with it then.
 

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    Windows 11 Pro 23H2 22631.3447
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Thanks a lot glasskuter,
Mine seems to be on the 3rd partition.
Windows RE location: \\?\GLOBALROOT\device\harddisk0\partition3\Recovery\WindowsRE
I will delete the extra one on the 5th partiton and see how it goes :)
 

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  • OS
    Windows 11 PRO
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    Razer Blade 17
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    Intel i7-12800H
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    32 GB DDR5 4800 MHz dual-channel
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    NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 3080 Ti
    Sound Card
    Steinberg UR44
    Hard Drives
    1 TB SSD (M.2 NVMe PCIe 4.0 x4
    Browser
    Firefox
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender + Malwarebytes
What annoys me the most is having to boot partitions on two different hard drives.
After reinstalling windows, I noticed something
Disconnect all hard drives except for the one you want to install Windows on.
(y)
 

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    Windows 11 pro
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    Asus
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    Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10700K CPU @ 3.80GHz
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    PRIME Z490-A
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    32.0 GB DDR4
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    Air
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    Microsoft Edge
The multiple recovery partitions arise when the Windows partition follows the recovery partition. Assume that scenario where Windows follows the recovery partition, and you then upgrade to a new version of Windows. Windows determines that there is not enough space in the existing recovery partition, so it has no choice but to shrink the Windows partition and create a new recovery partition in the free space now available after the Windows partition.

Microsoft now recommends creating the recovery partition last. If the recovery partition needs to be increased in size, the Windows partition can then be shrunk and the recovery partition can be expanded into that free space.

NOTE: Microsoft likes to claim that the recovery partition has the unique ability to grow backwards, which is not possible with other partitions. However, in actuality, what really happens is that the recovery partition is removed and then a new partition is created filling both the space freed by shrinking the Windows partition and deleting the original recovery partition. This gives the illusion of growing backwards although technically it's simply being recreated.

Note too that if you manually do a clean install of Windows, current versions of Windows will create the recovery partition last, which is what we want. However, unattended setup does not have the ability to do this and will place the recovery partition before the Windows partition. I keep waiting for Microsoft to add the ability for unattended setup to this, but as of Win 10 / 11 22H2 that capability is still missing. There is a workaround to this. To save you from the boredom, I won't describe it in detail here, but if anyone is interested, let me know and I'll provide the details.

The bottom line is this: Now that you have a recovery partition AFTER the Windows partition, Windows should be able to expand that partition if it needs to be grown again so you should not end up with a third partition :-).

Hope this helps!
 

My Computers

System One System Two

  • OS
    Win11 Pro 23H2
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    PC/Desktop
    Manufacturer/Model
    Home Built
    CPU
    Intel i7-11700K
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    ASUS Prime Z590-A
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    1 x 1TB NVMe Gen 4 x 4 SSD
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    Win11 Pro 23H2
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    Lenovo ThinkBook 13x Gen 2
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    Intel i7-1255U
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    16 GB
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    Intel Iris Xe Graphics
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    Realtek® ALC3306-CG codec
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    13.3-inch IPS Display
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    WQXGA (2560 x 1600)
    Hard Drives
    2 TB 4 x 4 NVMe SSD
    PSU
    USB-C / Thunderbolt 4 Power / Charging
    Mouse
    Buttonless Glass Precision Touchpad
    Keyboard
    Backlit, spill resistant keyboard
    Internet Speed
    1Gb Up / 1Gb Down
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    Windows Defender
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    WiFi 6e / Bluetooth 5.1 / Facial Recognition / Fingerprint Sensor / ToF (Time of Flight) Human Presence Sensor

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