Windows 10: Can I safely remove WINRE or RECOVERY partitions

boothard drivepartitioningUbuntuwindows 10

I'm attempting to install Ubuntu Linux alongside Windows 10 in a dual-boot configuration. However, my hard drive comes with four Primary partitions already created, as seen here in gParted:

http://i.imgur.com/ZIJGNWM.png

Thus, I must remove a partition to allow for an extended partition, in which I can place my logical partitions for Linux. I'll shrink the Windows partition to create space.

  • I created a recovery USB drive using the HP Recovery Media Creation tool desktop app. Does this drive fully replace the functionality of either the WINRE or RECOVERY partitions? If so, can I safely remove either partition without messing up my Windows 10 installation in any way (including boot process), voiding any warranties, or preventing myself from restoring Windows 10 in the future?

  • I know that holding Shift while clicking the Restart button will restart your computer into a special menu where you can change certain settings or boot from removable media (source, step 4 in the article). Is this special menu reliant on either the WINRE or RECOVERY partitions? Is the computer in fact booting into one of these partitions to display this menu?

  • What exactly are the purposes of these two partitions?

NOTE: I've read other questions regarding hard drives with four primary partitions already created. They don't resolve my issue, as they don't address the WINRE and RECOVERY partitions on a Windows 10 system specifically.

Best Answer

Windows 10 needs only 3 partitions:

  1. EFI System partition, often abbreviated as ESP, is a data storage device partition that is used in computers adhering to the UEFI specification. Accessed by the UEFI firmware when a computer is powered up, it stores UEFI applications and the files these applications need to run, including operating system kernels. It is typically a 100MB FAT32 partition, and needed for EFI boot. If you still use the old MBR boot, and you can disable UEFI completely in BIOS, you can delete it. However if Windows 10 discovers that your system can boot in UEFI mode while it is being installed it will create and use this partition.
  2. 16MB system reserved partition, used for unknown purpose. If you delete or move it, Windows 10 will not boot.
  3. Main windows partition. It is usually formatted as NTFS and holds all the files.

If you install Windows 10 on a big disk, then it will allocate more space for these partitions.

The latest (approximately after 2015-12-20) Windows installation image will create the recovery partition at the beginning of the drive, before the unmovable reserved partition, and it makes it very hard to remove it. I only succeeded by interrupting a clean Windows 10 installation, moving the ESP to the beginning of the drive using gParted and then restarting the installation. 450MB recovery partition on a small Acer Iconia Tab is a huge drain on resources, considering that I would never want to recover anything from it.

From the image, you posted, it looks like you have a huge GPT partitioned disk, and you already have five primary partitions. Just delete WINRE and RECOVERY and resize Windows and you will have plenty of space for anything.

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