My new Dell Inspiron notebook has arrived, with Win 10 Pro Seems to me there are too many recovery partitions, could someone kindly run me through the screenshot below and advise if I can delete any of them. Separately, I want to create a new partition D: to store all my data, leaving OS and programs on C: Does it make any difference at which point I create the new partition? thanks
newbino, You need to find the RE in use. From the PowerShell or Admin Command Prompt, use these lines diskpart select disk 0 list par (now you know the partition numbers). Can you post the output? Exit from Diskpart From the PowerShell or Admin Command Prompt, use this line reagentc /info Can you post the output?
Hi Brian, here is the output of the two operations, thanks for your help DISKPART> list par Partition ### Type Size Offset ------------- ---------------- ------- ------- Partition 1 System 150 MB 1024 KB Partition 2 Reserved 128 MB 151 MB Partition 3 Primary 931 GB 279 MB Partition 4 Recovery 990 MB 932 GB Partition 5 Recovery 19 GB 933 GB Partition 6 Recovery 1669 MB 952 GB Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) and system reset configuration Information: Windows RE status: Enabled Windows RE location: \\?\GLOBALROOT\device\harddisk0\partition4\Recovery\WindowsRE Boot Configuration Data (BCD) identifier: f049e34e-4498-11eb-9f36-9cebe8dd1dd3 Recovery image location: Recovery image index: 0 Custom image location: Custom image index: 0
newbino, Great. Partition 4 contains the active RE. The 990 MB partition. This is what I'd do. Make an entire drive backup image. For safety. Remove your flash drive. Delete Partitions 5 and 6. The Win10 partition is too large so I'd resize it to 100 or 200 GB. Or whatever you like. Slide Partition 4 up to the end of the Win10 partition. Now you should have about 800 GB of Unallocated Free Space following Partition 4. Create a NTFS partition in this Free Space and label it Data. It will be assigned D: drive by Win10.
Since you do not see it as a problem to delete the factory reset partition, why don`t you just reinstall Windows and partition to your liking. You will get a smoother Os as a consequence.
I think @pb1 means a clean install on a blank disk would give you your single Recovery partition and just what's needed for a basic Windows installation...
A new Pc usually comes with so called "bloat" and some software from the "company" that is not necessery for the Pc`s immediate functionality. (Over long time one can fix that self) That is a lot of services and other functions that starts with the computer and is active during use. Without all that a computer operates smoother, and faster. Usually one saves some space to, 10 to 15, or even 20 Gb. I do not think anyone on this forum do not do a new install on a new Pc just because of that. Besides exercising the power of user choice in that action. Right, Froggie?!
Personal preference. I never reinstall Windows if I can clean up a running OS or restore an image. Besides, I like changing partitions.
I'm a little 'late to the party', but I agree with @Brian K . In addition to what Brian said, a fresh install isn't really as 'smooth' as it might seem. Most likely, it would be missing the all-important drivers and other Dell support software for that Inspiron. To reinstall them will necessitate quite a few downloads from the Dell support website!