Solved How to delete duplicate recovery partitions and reclaim the space

aubergine said:

The disk has two recovery partitions (see screenshot below).

View attachment 113477

(disable Windows RE)

reagentc /disable ---> "Operation Successful"

(delete all recovery partitions and then extend Windows partition)

diskpart
select volume c
list partition
select partition # (replace # with the Recovery partition number)
delete partition override
select partition # (replace # with the Recovery partition number)
delete partition override
list partition
select partition # (replace # with the Windows partition number)
extend
exit

View attachment 113478

(create a new recovery partition)

diskpart
select volume c
shrink desired=1000
create partition primary size=1000
format quick fs=ntfs
set id=DE94BBA4-06D1-4D40-A16A-BFD50179D6AC
gpt attributes=0x8000000000000001
list partition
exit

reagentc /enable ---> "Operation Successful"

reagentc /info

View attachment 113479

View attachment 113480

The "bcdboot c:\windows" command from my first post is not needed.

edit:

Note that accidentally deleting the Windows partition and the EFI system partition is not possible (see screenshot below).

View attachment 113486

Click to expand...

OP said he doesn't feel comfortable with commands.
The instructions I gave on post #10 using MiniTool does the same and are simple and faster.

People talk about having "OMG moments" when they suddenly understand something that was previously confusing them. Well, I just had one. Specifically I now understand what reagentc does, and more importantly, why it does it. So I'll back up a step and explain what I mean.

My C: drive has no user data on it - only Windows and applications. So I make Macrium full image backups after any significant change happens to it. My backups are made to a fast external SSD and they take about 2 minutes to complete. The SSD is only attached when I make a backup (or a restore of course.) Since the backup copies everything on C: all recovery partitions are included also. After my last Repair install I noticed the "extra" recovery partition, so I thought I should delete the one I don't need and make that space available for C: stuff. That's why I started this thread.

After I understood what reagentc does, and why it does that, I checked C:\Windows\System32\Recovery and didn't see any change in it's contents regardless of whether reageentc was enabled or disabled. Then, after re-reading these posts I realized I needed to enable viewing hidden files. So when I did this I got this highly enlightening (for me) display:



That made it possible for me to understand posts saying "...don't need the recovery partitions" which had previously made no sense to me. So now my plan it to keep reagentc disabled, delete the 2 recovery partitions I have, keep the EFI one (of course), and expand C: partition to pick up all the new free space. I think I'll use Minitool to do all that - but one step at a time with a Macrium backup after each step.

The net result should be that my backups will run in less time because I'll not be backing up the old unusaed Recovery partition, and my C: will have a lot more space available to it.

Needless to say, thanks to everyone who posted here. I'll make a (hopefully) final post after I've finished with Minitool.

All done

It didn't go exactly how I expected, but quite close.

I verified the recovery file was on C: as shown in the screenshot above. The I used Minitool to delete the 2 Recovery partitions. Then I rebooted and got the screen saying missing or bad BCD data. So I rebooted again, went to BIOS, and pointed the boot funtion to my backup USB SSD that has a Macrium Recovery partition on it. I did that because that's where I run the Macrium Fix Boot function, as I have done several times.

I was surprised when the system booted up into Windows instead. So I rebooted again and Windows came up again, just like it is supposed to. So then I WIseCleaaner & CCleaner, made a new Restore Point, deleted the old Restore point, and made a new Macrium backup. THen I rebooted again and all looked good.

Just to check I ran WizTree and sure enough, amongst all the other stuff, was this:



That was never there before (because it had been in one of the now no-existent Recovery partitions) so I relaxed and made this post.

Thanks again for all the input I got here - hopefully this thread will help others in the future.

Megahertz said:

OP said he doesn't feel comfortable with commands.
The instructions I gave on post #10 using MiniTool does the same and are simple and faster.

Click to expand...

Yes. But I think command prompt is better option than third-party software.

aubergine said:

Yes. But I think command prompt is better option than third-party software.

Click to expand...

Sorry, I disagree.
The result is the same but why make it complicate if a good software like MiniTool can do it fast and easy. And it simulates each step. The action only takes place when you hit apply. Very hard to make a mistake with it.

Since I was the one who started all this let me explain my logic for doing things the way I do.

I got turned off to command line operations very early on after Windows first came out. I didn't like the arcane names the commands had (I had trouble remembering what they were) and I didn't like the fact that most of them gave no feedback about what they did or did not do. Windows, at that time, wasn't a lot better than this, but it was somewhat better at least.

Also, in order to use commands you have to know what the command is that you want to use. As a Windows user I could find no easy way to see what the command set consisted of, or what the commands actually do. At that time there was very little documentation about this, and what there was was poorly written and tended to use other commands to describe the one I was looking for. (For example, I still have no idea what grep and awk do - nor do I want to know.)

Also, with commands there's a higher risk of typo errors messing things up. Keying in stuff like "set id=DE94BBA4-06D1-4D40-A16A-BFD50179D6AC" is not high on my list of enjoyable or risk-free activities.

I've used Minitool a few times before (It's how I configured my backup SSD to have a large data partition and a small bootable recovery one), and it does provide a nice graphical display of what the partitions look like and where they are and will be. I did learn the hard way that even though Minitool says an operation is complete nothing really happens until you reboot. But at least it shows a nice image of what you should expect after rebooting.

The bottom line to all this is "you pays your money and takes your choice", meaning that the method to be used is determined by each user independently, and it's really only the end result that counts.