Partition question again

Is this an issue? Comments? Been imaging the same disk since Win 7.

An issue for what exactly?

Well your third recovery partition may become an issue at some point in the future as it can grow in usage with newer builds., and the system partition at the end of the drive is OK as long as it doesn't star above 2.2 TB, which is not an issue for you.. What's the first partition?

I think partition 5 may be your ESP - understandably not in its conventional position, but still operable.
If partition 4 is your current WinRE, partition 3 can be deleted and the unallocatd space used to extend C:
Partition 1 is probably not doing anything - a legacy from your previous migrations/upgrades?

omnescient said:

I think partition 5 may be your ESP - understandably not in its conventional position, but still operable.
If partition 4 is your current WinRE, partition 3 can be deleted and the unallocatd space used to extend C:
Partition 1 is probably not doing anything - a legacy from your previous migrations/upgrades?

Click to expand...

Partition 3 is the recovery partition, don't delete it.

Too many unknowns in your screenshot, and your question - try Minitool Partition Wizard (free) e.g.

PerpetualCycle said:

Partition 3 is the recovery partition, don't delete it.

Click to expand...

If part 3 is the recovery partition, (and I did say 'if'), then yes, I agree, don't delete it. I believe that partitions 3 & 4 may both be recovery partitions, and if that's so, then one of them is obsolete.
If that is the case, then the obsolete one can be deleted.
If partition 3 is the obsolete recovery partition, then deleting it and extending C: would have it immediately following C:, and extendable by Windows if necessary in the future.
Apologies for any confusion in my original response.

Normally the recovery partition is marked as the recovery partition in disk management.



From command prompt or powershell, what does this report: reagentc /info

omnescient said:

If part 3 is the recovery partition, (and I did say 'if'), then yes, I agree, don't delete it. I believe that partitions 3 & 4 may both be recovery partitions, and if that's so, then one of them is obsolete.
If that is the case, then the obsolete one can be deleted.
If partition 3 is the obsolete recovery partition, then deleting it and extending C: would have it immediately following C:, and extendable by Windows if necessary in the future.
Apologies for any confusion in my original response.

Click to expand...

It is - both partition and size (partition size and content size) are right (windows places the recovery partition after the boot drive) . Look at the size of your recovery partition.
4 is highly likely to be an obsolete recovery partition based on its smaller size.

EDIT: What @KevTech suggested will pin it down.

Even though it's working. your partition arrangement is not kosher to what one expects to see with Windows 11. The partitions are not in the expected order and it apprears Windows has created a second recovery partition because you did not have enough space on the original one. Now the one it created is almost full so chances are good windows will soon create a third recovery partition.

The screenshot @maarkr posted appears to be a Macrium Reflect system image - I imagine if he (assumption) has been using MR since W7 days, that he will be able to restore a current image and deal with the unnecessary partitions by excluding them from the restore procedure.
Delete all partitions - uncheck the box 'Restore partitions when I click Next'.
Drag and drop to: restore C (start of disk), restore part 5 (EFI/ESP) and float it right, then restore part 3 or 4 (whichever has been established as the current recovery part) and float it right, which should leave unallocated space immediately after C:, which can be used to extend C: either in MR or after in disk management.

The working recovery partition should be disabled (reagentc /disable) before the restoration, and the location of winre.wim confirmed as having been moved to a location on C: - probably C:\Windows\System32\Recovery - (reagentc /info will show current location per KevTech's & PerpetualCycles' posts).
Re-enable when back in Windows (reagentc /enable) and confirm that it (the wim) has been placed back in WinRe (reagentc /info again).

[Edit - afterthought] I don't know what's in Z:, but whatever it is can presumably be saved/backed up elsewhere.

I notice that you're using a Samsung NVMe drive - I don't see evidence of overprovisioning (unallocated space), and have no idea if you're using Magician software, but if you do in future, It might be prudent to disable OP before such operations & re-enable it after (though it usually seems to enable itself after booting back into W11, at least on my system.

This still leaves the ESP at the end of the disk, but if it's working now it should suffice, at least at present, and moving it would be something I haven't done myself, so I can't comment on that, though there are other members here who have more experience and knowledge than me who may be able to advise.

Neither do you have a 16MB MSR partition, though that obviously won't prevent the system from operating in 'normal' circumstances.

If it all goes sideways, the current image can be restored. This assumes you have an MR rescue disk that is still bootable - @garlin has scripts that check and update boot media if Windows updates change the criteria that need to be met by bootable USB drives.

These comments are based on similar operations I've performed on my system using the free edition of Macrium software, including changing partition order when recently extending my ESP, though extending that particular partition into the adjacent free space created in the restore had to be done after, using Minitool Partition Wizard.

You may know some or all of this stuff anyway - impossible to tell from your original post.

[caveat - this is just the approach I would take in your position, assuming you want to change anything anyway. Others members may not endorse the validity of my comments.]

AND if the drive is bitlocked or drive encrypted, always turn off encruption BEFORE dealing with Partitions.