How to Reconfigure Creators Update Recovery Partition?

Steve C said:

I could use MiniTool Partition Wizard (MPW) to delete the first 450MB recovery partition, move the 99MB and 16MB system partitions 2 & 3 to the start of the drive then expand the main OS partition to use up the space released.

That is exactly the order MS recommend.

The new partition layout resembles the traditional partition layouts from Windows 8.1, except the Windows RE partition is now moved to the end of the drive, and there is no longer a need for a separate full-system recovery partition.

Manufacturing Windows Engineering Guide | Microsoft Docs

Steve C said:

Will relocating the system partitions 2 & 3 using MPW cause any problems such as rendering the PC unbootable? Is there a recommended way of deleting the original recovery partition and recovering the disk space?

It will certainly boot if you rearrange your partitions like that.

It isn't terribly important as you don't really need a recovery partition if you have a installation USB but for completeness after you have finished moving the partitions you will need to use the reagentc command to reregister the WinRE image. Currently it is partition 5 - if you delete a partition the recovery image will be in in partition 4. It is described here Deploy Windows RE | Microsoft Docs

Esentially you temporarily assign the recovery partition a letter (eg T) in diskpart

• diskpart
• select disk 0
• select partition 4
• assign letter=T

Then reregister the WinRE image from command prompt

• Reagenc /disable
• Reagentc /setreimage /path T:\Recovery\WindowsRE /target C:\Windows
• Reagenc /enable
• Reagentc /info

Kyhi said:

Just curious, what did they include in the 925mb recovery partition, that partition is twice the prior size

Most of the space is taken up by winre.wim but only 61% of the partition space is used:

Attachment 157999

Code:

DISKPART> list part

  Partition ###  Type              Size     Offset
  -------------  ----------------  -------  -------
  Partition 1    Reserved           128 MB    17 KB (MSR)
  Partition 2    System             200 MB   129 MB (EFI)
  Partition 3    Primary            464 GB   329 MB (Windows)
  Partition 4    Recovery          1000 MB   464 GB (Recovery)

DISKPART>

I created the partition manually as above

The partition 1 "Reserved" is created automatically by "convert GPT"
then I did not create 16MB MSR which seems useless

Any advice ?

Steve C said:

Most of the space is taken up by winre.wim but only 61% of the partition space is used:

WinRE is bigger than standard. Mine is 362 while yours is 554. Perhaps it has some customisations.

The rules for Recovery partition size have big jumps based on the size of the WinRE.wim

This partition must have enough space for the Windows Recovery Environment tools image (winre.wim, typically between 250-300MB, depending on base language and customizations added), plus enough free space so that the partition can be captured by backup utilities:
If the partition is less than 500 MB, it must have at least 50 MB of free space.
If the partition is 500 MB or larger, it must have at least 320 MB of free space.
If the partition is larger than 1 GB, we recommend that it should have at least 1 GB free.

UEFI/GPT-based hard drive partitions | Microsoft Docs

568+320 = 878 which is about 924. More or less :)

D4ni3l said:

Code:

DISKPART> list part

  Partition ###  Type              Size     Offset
  -------------  ----------------  -------  -------
  Partition 1    Reserved           128 MB    17 KB (MSR)
  Partition 2    System             200 MB   129 MB (EFI)
  Partition 3    Primary            464 GB   329 MB (Windows)
  Partition 4    Recovery          1000 MB   464 GB (Recovery)

DISKPART>

I created the partition manually as above

The partition 1 "Reserved" is created automatically by "convert GPT"
then I did not create 16MB MSR which seems useless

Any advice ?

128MB reserved is created when you format GPT disk but you can delete it. You certainly don't need it on system disk and I don't think you need it on data disks either as OSX doesn't create it and these disks work fine with Windows.

I'd put EFI first. 200MB is fine although 100MB is probably sufficient unless you are dual booting. I dual boot with OSX and it expects a 200MB ESP.

Probably you are right and the MSR is useless (Windows seems to work OK without) but MS say to create it so I do - it should come before C and be 16MB only. Perhaps it will be required for something in future.

3 and 4 look OK.

There is a script for doing it here which includes the GPT flags etc you need to set

Code:

rem == CreatePartitions-UEFI.txt ==
rem == These commands are used with DiskPart to
rem    create four partitions
rem    for a UEFI/GPT-based PC.
rem    Adjust the partition sizes to fill the drive
rem    as necessary. ==
select disk 0
clean
convert gpt
rem == 1. System partition =========================
create partition efi size=100
rem    ** NOTE: For Advanced Format 4Kn drives,
rem               change this value to size = 260 ** 
format quick fs=fat32 label="System"
assign letter="S"
rem == 2. Microsoft Reserved (MSR) partition =======
create partition msr size=16
rem == 3. Windows partition ========================
rem ==    a. Create the Windows partition ==========
create partition primary 
rem ==    b. Create space for the recovery tools ===
shrink minimum=500
rem       ** NOTE: Update this size to match the
rem                size of the recovery tools 
rem                (winre.wim) plus free space                   **
rem ==    c. Prepare the Windows partition ========= 
format quick fs=ntfs label="Windows"
assign letter="W"
rem === 4. Recovery tools partition ================
create partition primary
format quick fs=ntfs label="Recovery tools"
assign letter="R"
set id="de94bba4-06d1-4d40-a16a-bfd50179d6ac"
gpt attributes=0x8000000000000001
list volume
exit

lx07 said:

WinRE is bigger than standard. Mine is 362 while yours is 554. Perhaps it has some customisations.

No customisations. I just let Windows Update upgrade to the CU and the larger partition at the end of the drive is what it decided to install.

thanks for your help, lx07

still thinking about this

I am now convinced I will remove the Recovery partition and put WinRE in "C:\Recovery" directory which exists in standard installation
In case of problem on main Windows partition, WinPE on USB key is a also a good recovery