Can I delete the recovery partition?

Atomic77 said:

PARTITION is there so in case something got messed up you can recover. If I were you don't delete it.

Of course the recovery partition just happens to reside on the part of the computer most likely to fail first - it is certainly not a replacement for good backups.

NavyLCDR said:

Incorrect. A clean install will create it's own recovery partition.

Mine creates (or re-uses) a 'System Reserved' partition but not a Recovery Partition.

Edwin said:

Mine creates (or re-uses) a 'System Reserved' partition but not a Recovery Partition.

Your ‘System Reserved’ partition is created during installation of Windows because your disk has not been formatted. If you have formatted your disk before the installation of Windows, this partition would not be created.

Cheers
René

ReneM said:

Your ‘System Reserved’ partition is created during installation of Windows because your disk has not been formatted. If you have formatted your disk before the installation of Windows, this partition would not be created.

Cheers
René

Creates one or uses the existing whether I format the disk or not.

topgundcp said:

@Edwin.
Your Windows 10 was installed using MBR partition scheme. The Recovery Tool is in the System Reserved partition with BCD and only has 2 partitions: System Reserved and C drive.

With GPT partition scheme, The BCD is in EFI System partition and the Recovery Tool is in the Recovery Partition and has 4 partitions: Recovery partition, EFI System partition, MSR partition (hidden from disk management) and C drive

If I upgrade install, it creates a Recovery Partition over and above the System Reserved.

Edwin said:

Creates one or uses the existing whether I format the disk or not.

If you delete all partitions when installing (so you only have unallocated space) it will create it.

If you really don't want it delete all, click "new" (it will create system reserved and C for mbr). Delete C, extend system reserved, format and you'll have one partition. When you install it will use just the one partition and stick WinRE into C:\Windows\Recovery

I do that in VMs as I don't think I need multiple copies of a partition with WinRE (I'm very stingy with disk space for VMs, it is a little hobby of mine....).

dvdlock said:

Thank everyone.
On a learning curve here.
I am about to clone to a mSATA SSD and format this drive. Should I delete those 4 healthy partitions and just leave the EFI before cloning ? Not sure the partitions matter in this case.
Thanks again.

This is what I would do. Create a Windows 10 installation USB/DVD - just in case. On the current HDD, install Macrium Reflect Free. Create a Macrium Reflect Rescue USB/DVD. There is also a way to add the Macrium Reflect Rescue ISO to a Windows 10 installation USB as dual booting (which is what I have done).

Connect the SSD as primary drive, primary boot device in bios. Connect the HDD as secondary drive. Boot from the Macrium Reflect Rescue USB/DVD. Copy only the EFI System and Operating System partitions to the SSD. Run the fix start (or boot) problems utility on the Macrium Reflect Rescue USB/DVD to point the boot files to the new operating system partition. Power off, disconnect the HDD, boot with the SSD only to make sure everything works. If it fails to boot, go back to the Macrium Reflect USB and try repairing the boot problem again with the HDD disconnected.

After it is setup and running with only the SSD connected, reconnect the HDD and do whatever you want with it for a storage drive.

If your using uefi, each GPT partition as small protected partition with the GPT information on it and shouldn't be deleted, if your using a oem computer you will have two recovery partitions, one by the manufacturer and one created by windows, I wouldn't delete any, they don't take up that much room.

I wouldn't delete any of these recovery partitions until you know exactly what your doing. If recovery partition is win 8 or 8.1, they'll be gone when you do a clean install, I'd keep the windows recovery partition.

You want to back-up the OS drive, by a hdd close to the size of your ssd and do a disk copy or clone that's bootable, if you lose your OS set-up you can boot with hdd and re-clone to the ssd. Been doing full disk back-ups for years using Paragon's hard disk manager version 15 which is compatible with win 10 also does raid 0 partitions.

I've a 512gb 850 pro in th laptop and a 512gb Crucial M4 I use as a 1 to 1 clone, takes 20 mins to clone the 240gbs on 850 pro, I generally run a comprehensive scan with Nortons 360 before I do the back-up, the software automatically checks for both mechanical and software defects and compacts the data rather than leaving it scattered all across the drive, takes 15 mins to swap out drives if windows goes down due to malware or some other reason like a failed disk, been doing this for at least 15 years, never been off line longer than 15 mins, the exception being if the laptop motherboard failed and had to replace either Desktop or laptop or a change in OS's, the Paragon software is as cheap as chips at around 70 bucks, works with most OS's uefi or bios.