Partition scheme is in a mess

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  1. Posts : 111
    Windows 10 Pro 21H1
       #1

    Partition scheme is in a mess


    When I started out my partition scheme looked like this in Easeus Partition Master. I was unable to get into recovery. I ran cmd reagentc /info. It said it was disabled. I attempted to enable it but it said there was no recovery. (However, there are 2 partitions of approx. 500 mb in size, one of which had data in it. One was empty)

    Partition scheme is in a mess-original-partitions.png
    In an attempt to get a working recovery partition, I did a non-destructive reinstall of windows thinking it would build a good recovery partition and it did. I am now able to access recovery. Here are shots of my current partition scheme in Easeus Partition Master.
    Partition scheme is in a mess-epm-current-partitions.png
    Here is current diskpart and reagentc
    Partition scheme is in a mess-current-diskpart.png

    It appears the reinstall built volumes 5 (100mg fat32) as my recovery partition and volume 6 (557 mb hidden partition). I now have both volumes 4 and 6 hidden partitions? Shouldn't I have only one of those? If my assumption is correct, the system is not using volume 4. Should I delete vol 4 which would leave 500 mb unused space at beginning of disk and if I do, will I have to change the volume numbers or will the system automatically change them when I delete volume 4? I also will have 524mb unallocated space at end of disk. Could I then use Partition Wizard to use this non-consecutive space to straighten this mess out? I'm not so concerned about losing this total of 1 gb unused space. I just want to get my partitions scheme straightened out and end up with a working recovery partition..
    I don't know how I got this so messed up.
    Another thing, I would be more than happy to do a clean install of windows if that would straighten it out. I am assuming If I did I would have to initialize the disk first. Could I then restore just my C: drive using Macrium and leave any other partition that a clean install builds?
    I know this is a lot of questions but I don't want to get myself in worse shape than I already am.
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  2. Posts : 24,151
    Win 10 Home ♦♦♦19045.4957 (x64) [22H2]
       #2

    @lgentry

    Could you post an EaseUS screenshot showing everything, like this...


    Partition scheme is in a mess-image1.png





    If it were me, I would unhook Disk 1 and 3 (and Disk 0?), and delete everything on Disk 2, then do a clean install of Windows 10 on Disk 2.

    Clean Install Windows 10
    Last edited by Ghot; 19 Apr 2021 at 02:11.
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  3. Posts : 44,251
    Win 10 Pro (22H2) (2nd PC is 22H2)
       #3

    I did a non-destructive reinstall of windows
    - presumably this was an in-place upgrade repair install - which, as you say, should ensure you have a valid Recovery partition.

    Neglecting the small unallocated partitions, the 499Gb partition on Disk 2 should be an old unused Recovery partition which you could delete.

    Making use of that space would mean moving partitions - before you did that you should ensure you have a full disk image, just in case.
      My Computers


  4. Posts : 44,251
    Win 10 Pro (22H2) (2nd PC is 22H2)
       #4

    I did a non-destructive reinstall of windows
    - presumably this was an in-place upgrade repair install - which, as you say, should ensure you have a valid Recovery partition.

    Neglecting the small unallocated partitions, the 499Gb partition on Disk 2 should be an old unused Recovery partition which you could delete.

    Making use of that space would mean moving a partition boundary - before doing that you should ensure you have a full disk image, just in case.
      My Computers


  5. Posts : 7,630
    Windows 10 Home 20H2
       #5

    Run the following script provided by the BSOD team and post the output.

    DiskParInfo.bat

    Source: Batch files for use in BSOD debugging
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  6. Posts : 111
    Windows 10 Pro 21H1
    Thread Starter
       #6

    Here is all the results with all extra disks disconnected. Only 2 drives are connected - main boot ssd drive and secondary data drive. It would be more straightforward if the ssd was disk 0 instead of disk 1 but I never could get the ssd to work by switching cables.
    Easeus Partition Master (it's weird that it shows both the 499 and 557 mb partitions as unused when one of them clearly is not)
    Partition scheme is in a mess-easeus-results1.png
    Here is bat file results
    Partition scheme is in a mess-diskpartinfolog.png
    Here is current reagentc /info results
    Partition scheme is in a mess-reagentc-results.png
    Partition scheme is in a mess Attached Files
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  7. Posts : 7,630
    Windows 10 Home 20H2
       #7

    Windows RE location: \\?\GLOBALROOT\device\harddisk1\partition5\Recovery\WindowsRE

    Partition 5 on Disk 1 contains the applicable Windows RE.
    Code:
      Partition 1    Recovery           499 MB  1024 KB
      Partition 2    System             100 MB   500 MB
      Partition 3    Reserved            16 MB   600 MB
      Partition 4    Primary            221 GB   616 MB
      Partition 5    Recovery           557 MB   222 GB
    Partition 1 (= Volume 4) is not needed.

    Code:
      Volume 0     D                       DVD-ROM         0 B  No Media           
      Volume 1     E   Personal Fi  NTFS   Partition    100 GB  Healthy     
      Volume 2     F   Bkup for C   NTFS   Partition    365 GB  Healthy      
      Volume 3     C   Windows10    NTFS   Partition    221 GB  Healthy    Boot    
      Volume 4                      NTFS   Partition    499 MB  Healthy    Hidden  
      Volume 5                      FAT32  Partition    100 MB  Healthy    System  
      Volume 6                      NTFS   Partition    557 MB  Healthy    Hidden
      My Computer


  8. Posts : 44,251
    Win 10 Pro (22H2) (2nd PC is 22H2)
       #8

    As per post #3... You should be able to deal with this minor issue with a decent 3rd party partition manager.

    But as I said, make sure you have a disk image of all used partitions on the disk first. Belt and braces approach. (Just in case).
      My Computers

  9.   My Computer


  10. Posts : 111
    Windows 10 Pro 21H1
    Thread Starter
       #10

    I wouldn't let this beat me, I spent more hours than I could count messing with it. From reading, I discovered the flaw Microsoft had where feature updates sometimes ended up building new WinRE if the old one wasn't large enough. (I also read where MS had since straightened this out where it would in the future backward extend the WinRE partition into the data partition rather than building additional partitions when more space was needed.) I was determined to accomplish 4 things - My partitions would be in order, I was going to have a working recovery environment, I was going to utilize all my ssd space, and I wasn't going to have to reinstall all my many programs and settings with a clean install. Efforts with trying to move partitions or delete extra partitions just ended up with blue screens at boot or still no working recovery. I swear I wore out DISKPART and BOOTREC during this time. In the end the solution was simpler than I thought. Here's what ended up straightening it out. Anyone reading this, take it from me. Have a good system back up every step of the way.
    I had an original system backup with Macrium.

    I then did a restore with Macrium by first deleting all partitions from target disk within Macrium and then dragging just the 100mb, 16 mb, and boot/data partitions in the correct order. So at this point I still had no recovery but the partition scheme made sense on the disk. NOTE: I did get a blue screen here for some reason. Do NOT use the 'fix boot problems' in Macrium here because it will still blue screen. Use BootRec commands instead to fix this blue screen.
    From there I did a in-place upgrade which kept all my data and rebuilt the recovery environment at the end of the disk.
    Now I'm going to wait until the next big feature update to see if MS had indeed fixed this confusing issue with all the additional partitions.
      My Computer


 

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