Puzzled by Partioning

I'm juggling (balancing) space allocated to several partitions, and was curious about the system partitions I'm seeing... I mounted a few of these to see what they involved...

Here's what I saw (please correct, and fill in the gaps of my understanding
SYSTEM: This is the EFI partition (it contains a "EFI" folder). There are some "old" files here (2013), but also some 2019/2020 files present
Recovery: I'm unsure what this is for, the files appear to be the Win8 installation files for this PC. Here's a top level view...

My guess is that this partition can be deleted as I'm on Win10 presently. Anyone concur?
<no name>: Reports as unformatted. I presume this could be rolled into the OS partition adding a whopping
128MB. Agree?
<no name>: The one between C: and D: is an odd bird. It reports 576MB used space, but when I mounted it, I saw nothing. Is this the super-secret partition that Microsoft adds?
Restore: This one is a bit cryptic, but it appears to hold ASUS specific drivers...

Given the age of these, I presume I could delete this partition with little lost. Thoughts?

Historically, this PC was purchased with Win8, and then went through an "in place" upgrade to Win10 a year ago. Presently it has v2004 (20H2 has not yet been offered).

Unless I'm mistaken, I can delete partitions labeled Restore and Recovery, and probably the unformatted 128MB no name partition.

As for the 1GB no name partition with all files hidden, I'd do well to leave that alone, along with the System (EFI) partition.

Am I on safe ground here?

Thanks for any insights (... and yes, I know I'm OCD).

EFI partitions are created when your boot mode is UEFI.

Windows key + R, enter msinfo32

See "BIOS Mode".

Recovery partitions contain files to reset (reinstall) Windows to a good known state.

Settings > Update & Security > Recovery > Reset this PC.

Those partitions should be left alone.

The 576MB is likely a recovery partition.



Run: DiskParInfo.bat - Click here to go to the BSOD batch repository to download and run this batch file.




Open disk management > by default some columns are compressed > widen each Status and Volume > make sure the contents within the parenthesis are in full view and that none of the characters are cutoff > view disk 0 > widen this row as needed so that all of the characters are in full view > post an image into the thread
Disk Management - How to Post a Screenshot of

Download and install Minitool Partition Wizard > click launch > post an image of the results into this thread
MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition - Free download and software reviews - CNET Download
MiniTool Portable Partition Magic Brings Easier Disk Management

On a UEFI system, one partition is hidden.

Examples -

Disk Management (doesn't display) -



MiniTool Partition Wizard (does display) -



So, you'll want to leave that alone as well.

OldNavyGuy said:

Recovery partitions contain files to reset (reinstall) Windows to a good known state.

Settings > Update & Security > Recovery > Reset this PC.

Those partitions should be left alone.

OK, but these are for Win 8 and I'm on Win 10. Why would they be necessary?

zbook said:

The 576MB is likely a recovery partition.

Run: DiskParInfo.bat - Click here to go to the BSOD batch repository to download and run this batch file.

Attached below

zbook said:

Open disk management > by default some columns are compressed > widen each Status and Volume > make sure the contents within the parenthesis are in full view and that none of the characters are cutoff > view disk 0 > widen this row as needed so that all of the characters are in full view > post an image into the thread

zbook said:

Download and install Minitool Partition Wizard > click launch > post an image of the results into this thread
MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition - Free download and software reviews - CNET Download
MiniTool Portable Partition Magic Brings Easier Disk Management

Hope this is similar...

Please post the full box / image of disk management.

Samsung SSD 840 EVO 1TB has 3 recovery partitions.

zbook said:

Please post the full box / image of disk management.

Samsung SSD 840 EVO 1TB has 3 recovery partitions.

What problems are there?

zbook said:

What problems are there?

My basic question is that since I am running Win10 v2004, can I delete partitions that seem related to the original Win8 install, such as the 900MB labeled Recovery partition that hosts Win8, and the 20 GB Restore partition, that hosts ASUS drivers and crapware from 2012-2013... with no ill effect?

If the Macrium backup is up to date and can be used to restore an image you can delete recovery partitions.

Deleting the enabled recovery partition, between C: and D: (913 MB) eliminates safe mode, safe mode with command prompt, and safe mode with networking.

There is little to be gained by deleting < 1 GB


The 900 MB can be deleted.
Again there is little accomplished.