Recovery partition: how to remove it painlessly for Windows systems?

Surely any user of Windows operating systems knows that in case of unforeseen critical failures their performance can be restored. This is the responsibility of the Windows recovery partition, which stores the files necessary to perform this procedure. However, they take up a lot of hard disk space (sometimes up to 15 GB, as in Windows 8). This is especially felt on hard drives with small volumes. And many quite rightly start to wonder about the release of the place, which is occupied by the notorious section of restoration.

How to remove it and whether it can be done at all, we will consider further. But I want to immediately warn all users that, when performing this procedure, it is necessary, that is called, to sweat, and it is necessary to carry out such actions only at your own peril and risk.

What is a recovery partition and is it necessary?

The partition itself, as already understood, is a reserved space on the hard disk, and in the system partition where the installed OS is located.

Typically, depending on the modification of the system, its size can vary, but usually it's about 300-500 MB. Here the Recovery folder is located, in which there is a WindowsRE directory with the Winre.wim image embedded in it. It is completely logical that all this is hidden from the user's eyes, so that he accidentally (or intentionally) does not remove the necessary recovery tools.

But this is not the only thing. On the disk there are two more hidden sections, the existence of which the user does not even guess. This is the EFI system partition with a volume of about 100 MB and a 128 MB partition MSR that is responsible for GPT markup. Thus, for example, the question of how to delete a recovery partition in Windows 10 is reduced to removing from the system disk not one but three sections to connect them to the available space.

I must say that not all users know that the tools for restoring the system can be found both on the installation media and on special disks for the rollback and elimination of system errors. Therefore, in some cases, you can not only hide the recovery partition, but also remove it, as they say, without a twinge of conscience. For this, several methods can be proposed.

Reinstalling Windows 10: Will the recovery partition be deleted?

First, a few words about the re- installation of the system. Some users naively believe that reinstalling Windows 10 or any other modification with full formatting of the system disk will also destroy the above sections.

Nothing like this! Yes, at the stage of choosing a disk for OS installation, absolutely all partitions will be displayed, and the formatting will really combine them into one. But after all, in the "clean" system that the user receives immediately after the installation, automatic system recovery is activated by default, so that the OS itself, whether you want it or not, again reserves a place on the hard drive, where it writes the necessary information right away.

Recovery partition: how to remove it from the command line?

So, let's start with the most complicated, but absolutely effective method, which assumes the use of the command console (cmd), which must necessarily be run with administrator rights.

But before that you need to perform a few simple steps. First, create a recovery disc. If you use the "Restore" menu in the Control Panel, you will need a USB flash drive, if you use the archive and restore partition, use optical media. A 64GB or higher flash drive is convenient because you can perform a full backup of the data from the recovery partition itself (but more on this later).

Further, the solution to the problem of how to remove the recovery partition from the hard disk is to select the line of special boot options (for Windows 10) in the update and security menu that is located in the options section or to install the removable media as the first boot device In the BIOS.

After the restart, at the beginning of the installation of the operating system by the combination Shift + F10 a command line is invoked, in which the following commands are successively prescribed:

• Diskpart;
• Lis dis (list of all sections);
• Sel dis 0 (drive selection with installed OS);
• Lis par (view partitions);
• Sel par 1 (selection of the first section);
• Del par override (delete the first section);
• Sel par 2 (select the second partition);
• Del par override (delete the second partition);
• Sel par 3 (select the third partition);
• Del par override (delete the third section);
• Create par efi size = 100 (creating an encrypted EFI partition with a size of 100 MB);
• Fs = fat32 (formatting in FAT32);
• Create par msr size = 128 (creating an MSR partition with a size of 128 MB);
• Lis vol (section view);
• Exit (exit from diskpart);
• Bcdboot C: \ Windows (installing the boot partition);
• Exit (full exit from the console).

Disk management with AOMEI

The reset field should be used for simplicity of further operations using the AOMEI application, select the disk to which you want to attach the space, and then use the change / move row in the menu on the left side.

Then move the partition, and the slider is dragged to the limit (to completely take all the space under the drive C. Be sure to note that after such actions on the line "Unallocated space before" there were zeros.

Click "OK" and "Apply". In the pending operations window that appears, the transition button is pressed, after which you must agree with the instructions in the message. After that, a black window will appear to free up space. At the end of the process, the recovery partition will be deleted, and the free space will join the system partition.

Methodology for Windows 8 and higher

Now on how to delete the recovery partition in versions of Windows 8 and higher (in the seventh modification and below this solution does not work).

Remember, they were talking about the creation of a bootable USB flash drive at the first stage? So, if you check the backup line, the entire partition, user files and programs can be transferred to this media. True, this may take even several hours and a flash drive larger than 64 GB of capacity.

But at the end of the process, the system itself will prompt you to delete the recovery partition you are looking for. We agree and immediately see how much space has been vacated.

Conclusion

It remains to say that it is expedient to delete the desired partition only in cases where recovery in any situation is planned to be performed exclusively from a removable medium, which you need to create in advance. If for some reason it is not at hand, rollback of the system even to the factory state without reinstallation will be absolutely impossible.