As you may know that Windows can only shrink a partition from its right side, so you can tell which recovery partition was newly created by upgrading to Windows 10. If you don’t want Windows to create another recovery partition, you can increase the size of recovery partition or system reserved partition before upgrading to Windows 10.Īccording to Microsoft, the previous Windows version recovery partition will be nonfunctional, so you can delete the previous recovery partition to free up some disk space. There is no wonder that you have many recovery partitions after upgrading to Windows 10.
Why An Extra Recovery Partition Created During Upgrade?Įvery time when you upgrade Windows to the next version, the upgrade program will create a recovery partition if it detects that there is no sufficient space on your recovery partition (GPT disk) or system reserved partition (MBR disk). If you have a copy of Windows installation, you can delete this OEM partition to free up more disk space. This OEM partition allows you to press a specified key to boot into Recovery Environment, so you can recover your OS to factory setting without a Windows installation disc. On some computers, the WinRE and the factory installation are separately stored on two partitions, so you may see two OEM partitions on your computer. OEM recovery partitionĪpart from the recovery partition of Windows, there may be another recovery partition created by the computer manufacturer like Lenovo and Dell that has made their computer comes with an OEM recovery partition consuming about 7 to 20 GB, which contains the WinRE and their factory installation files.
Otherwise, if you install Windows on a hard drive containing multiple partitions, Windows will save the WinRE in a folder named Recovery in the root directory of your system drive (C: drive) without leaving a recovery partition. With the recovery drive, you can still use Windows recovery options.
If you create Windows 10 recovery disk, Windows will give you an option to remove the recovery partition. If you delete this partition, you won’t be able to use Windows Recovery options. This recovery partition is to hold the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE), which can be explored if you manually assign a drive letter to it. The recovery partition on Windows 10 consumes about 450MB, Windows 8/8.1 200MB, and Windows 7 100MB. When installing a Windows operating system (OS) on a hard drive, and if you use Windows Setup to create new partition on an MBR disk, Windows will create a system reserved partition, and if it is a GPT disk, then Windows will create a recovery partition and an EFI system partition without drive letter. There are two kinds of recovery partitions you may see in Windows 10/8/7. Recovery partition is a small partition on your hard drive that can help you restore your Windows or troubleshoot system issues.