Partition on SSD labelled “RESTORE” is 24GB (Dell XPS 9730 i7 13700H with 1TB ssd and 32gigs of ram and RTX 4070 GPU)

So, my problem: When I run Disk Management it shows several partitions. Disk 0 Partition 1 is a EFI system @ 260 MB; Disk 0 Partition 4 is a Recovery Part @ 851 MB; Disk 0 Partition 6 is a Recovery Part @ 1GB; OS (C:) is the Boot etc. drive @ 141 GB; and RESTORE is a Primary Partition @ 24 GB.


In System Properties only the OS(C:)(System) and RESTORE drives show up as available drives in the Protection Settings window. Protection is on for the OS and off for RESTORE. The OS icon shows it as a drive but the RESTORE icon looks like a directory.


What is the RESTORE partition and why is it so big?? BTW that partition is 78% empty but it occupies a third of the drive. I would like to get rid of it to free up space on the SSD but if it's the system image i want to make sure i can copy it to a removable media and use it later if necessary. I have scoured Google and seen lots of stuff on the Recovery drive and how protection is off for that but I have not seen any drive or partition labelled "RESTORE"


So, 1. What is this RESTORE drive? Is it simply the Recovery drive by a different name? 2. Why is it so big? 3. Can I or should I, remove it and how? 4. Ideally, if it is necessary for a recovery or re-install I’d like to store it on a USB flash drive. Is that possible? Is it a good idea?

Very possibly the manufacturers factory restore partition?

Disk management screenshot and the Dell model placed in your specs would be good

Meyrick said:

What is the RESTORE partition and why is it so big??

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That is a Dell OEM system image for restoring your XPS 9730 to its original condition using Dell SupportAssist.

Dell said:

SupportAssist OS Recovery Local Restore: This option restores the computer from the recovery image that is stored in the computer's hard drive.

Click to expand...

Bree said:

That is a Dell OEM system image for restoring your XPS 9730 to its original condition using Dell SupportAssist.

Repair and Restore your Computer Using SupportAssist OS Recovery | Dell US

Click to expand...

This is interesting as I thought Dell stopped providing the Recovery OS on the actual system since 2018 as I know my system doesn't come with it and later systems that friends bought don't either and even Dell's website shows:

I don't have a Restore partition.

As others say, that is a vendor recovery partition which is pretty old hat these days. They pretty much died out post Win 8.

I never use these as they restore an old version of windows plus install all the vendor crapware.

Some people like to keep these whilst pc is under warranty, or even because they like the vendor crapware ().

These backups are not even that reliable as the links to it often get broken after a major windows update i.e. you cannot access partition anyway.

However, a clean install from MS can sometimes be problematic if drivers are missing.

I always advise users to backup their drivers to a usb drive or second internal drive immediately after installing Windows (and preferably update the drivers periodically) just in case, particularly NVME IRST drivers.

The Dell 9730 is a 2023 model when I was googling it so it's not even old which is why it's surprising to still have a recovery partition when even 2018 machines no longer came with the recovery partition as I knew they used that before. The recovery partition can be useful if you wanted the machine in the same way it shipped like when selling it or giving it to someone.

Speaking about drivers, I noticed when I booted in Ubuntu Linux Live ISO, and I was using it in Live mode, it says one has to disable Intel RST in Windows to install Ubuntu. I can understand if one changed between RAID and the other mode in the BIOS but I don't see how drivers which is only used while Windows is running can conflict with Linux.

My Dell Vostro Desktop with 512GB NVMe M.2 factory setup from April 2022 [I added the 4TB HDD]:


I've seen new install on fully wiped drives have either 3 partitions or 5 partitions.