On my main laptop, running the latest version of W10, I notice that it has SIX "Partitions".......one is the current O/S and the other five are empty.......can I safely delete the said five that are empty ?......and if so how ?..........
Please post a screenshot of your partitions using Minitool Partition Wizard, using forum features thus:
Is your installation legacy MBR or UEFI?
Note that a UEFI installation typically has 4 partitions by default. Thanks.
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Actually there are only FIVE partitions.........
Now that's a photo of disk management. I did ask for Minitool Partition Wizard- why? Because one partition isnt shown by DM by design, and MT PW is more informative.
Here's how to create a screenshot:
Take Screenshot in Windows 10
And of course you can use a 3rd party tool to create it.
Example:
From what I can make out of yours you have either 1 or 2 redundant Recovery partitions.
I hesitate because the last is much larger than a normal Recovery partition, but probably smaller than one for Factory Reset - i.e. there's not enough info to tell exactly what it is.
To discover your currently active Recovery partition do this:
then be very sure you know which partition that points to before taking any action.
Certain partition operations are best done with a 3rd party partition manager e.g. MT P. Wizard.
Thanks for that, a bit out of my depth I think.......I shall have to read up on it..... I just wondered why this machine has five, or six partitions, when the other three machines don't, they only seem to have two......
History- old builds of Win 10 used to place the Recovery partition first- a design mistake.
Upgrading eventually needed a larger partition- placed after the rest. The first remained.
That probably explains the first.
The large one at the end may be a Factory Reset partition - and if so, is probably something you don't need (will you ever need your PC 'as bought'?).
One way to explore these is to use MT P Wizard (free) - rt click a partition of interest, click Explore
That way you can see what the large Recovery partition contains.
Also of interest is the date info. Imagine you had 3 Recovery partitions with similar content (that shouldn't really happen...)
The current one would be the one of the most recent date.
A very quick glance at tinternet gives 2015 as the vintage and intel 3rd gen as the hardware of those Tosh laptops.
Recovery partition probably has whatever was the original os. Best to make an image of the recov partition people are often looking for the original recovery media/partition contents of old machines.
What happens to all those old machines after win10 is euthenized?
I recall ms saying a few years ago ( during the win8 debacle ) there were 1.5 billion windows machines out there. Some of them will have died by 2025 but most will still be going strong.
That is perfectly normal to have those partitions as viewed in the Windows Disk Management.
The reason you have that many is due to those version updates of Windows 10, the 9.84 GB one is the manufacturers recovery partition.
Those that are indicated as 100% free are not, that is an oddity of Windows Disk Management, using a different Tool like the ones mentioned will show those partitions as occupied.
No need to do anything as you have 877 GB (95%) free on the HDD anyway, 10 GB more is just wasting your time.
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