Recreating Recovery Partition

After having to replace my W10 system disk, I decided to have a go at
deleting three of the four "recovery partitions" which had accumulated
(dating back to Windows 8.0).

Somehow I'm managed to break the last one (Version 1709, so far).

I've tried fooling around with the DISM and REAGENTC commands. Dism
managed to create an image of my C: drive - full-size, at 63GB. So I
tried doing the same with a "Recovery Drive" USB stick. I saved the WIM
file to a partition I'd recreated after my system partition, and I
managed to get ReagentC to register and enable it, but when I tried to
use it (tried to get a command-prompt boot) my machine just sat there
"Please wait" for an unconvincing amount of time. I've now deleted the
partition and extended the system partition to the end of the disk - I'm
rather wondering if the 1803 update might fix it when I get that.

Any advice? I realise I can still use the USB drive if I run into
problems (and I'll take an occasional system image) but it would be
satisfying to get back to having a "proper" recovery partition.


--

Phil, London

Philip Herlihy wrote:
After having to replace my W10 system disk, I decided to have a go at
deleting three of the four "recovery partitions" which had accumulated
(dating back to Windows 8.0).

Somehow I'm managed to break the last one (Version 1709, so far).

I've tried fooling around with the DISM and REAGENTC commands. Dism
managed to create an image of my C: drive - full-size, at 63GB. So I
tried doing the same with a "Recovery Drive" USB stick. I saved the WIM
file to a partition I'd recreated after my system partition, and I
managed to get ReagentC to register and enable it, but when I tried to
use it (tried to get a command-prompt boot) my machine just sat there
"Please wait" for an unconvincing amount of time. I've now deleted the
partition and extended the system partition to the end of the disk - I'm
rather wondering if the 1803 update might fix it when I get that.

Any advice? I realise I can still use the USB drive if I run into
problems (and I'll take an occasional system image) but it would be
satisfying to get back to having a "proper" recovery partition.


That's one thing I noticed on my Win10RLS 1803 setup,
is the stupid installer created *another* of those partitions.

This is my setup today. I just looked at this last night,
and laughed at it and shut Disk Management in disgust. Idiots.

https://s14.postimg.cc/xxhmde3z5/Win..._partition.gif

So rest assured, they will make another and another and another,
even if they aren't linked together properly or are functional
or anything. I researched this a while back, wasted my time
with reagentc, and was rewarded with my "fix" being torn
apart and broken by Microsoft afterwards. So really,
who gives a **** about how stupid the computer looks.
Why should I care, when I'm facing such a "worthy opponent" ?

You might want to check what is inside those partitions.
On more than one occasion, there was no winpe WIM in there.
And the default location on C: didn't have one either. I
haven't been able to find a web page that defines what
a "correct" setup might be. Correct enough that the software
doesn't muck about with it.

Paul

In article , lid says...

Philip Herlihy wrote:
After having to replace my W10 system disk, I decided to have a go at
deleting three of the four "recovery partitions" which had accumulated
(dating back to Windows 8.0).

Somehow I'm managed to break the last one (Version 1709, so far).

I've tried fooling around with the DISM and REAGENTC commands. Dism
managed to create an image of my C: drive - full-size, at 63GB. So I
tried doing the same with a "Recovery Drive" USB stick. I saved the WIM
file to a partition I'd recreated after my system partition, and I
managed to get ReagentC to register and enable it, but when I tried to
use it (tried to get a command-prompt boot) my machine just sat there
"Please wait" for an unconvincing amount of time. I've now deleted the
partition and extended the system partition to the end of the disk - I'm
rather wondering if the 1803 update might fix it when I get that.

Any advice? I realise I can still use the USB drive if I run into
problems (and I'll take an occasional system image) but it would be
satisfying to get back to having a "proper" recovery partition.


That's one thing I noticed on my Win10RLS 1803 setup,
is the stupid installer created *another* of those partitions.

This is my setup today. I just looked at this last night,
and laughed at it and shut Disk Management in disgust. Idiots.

https://s14.postimg.cc/xxhmde3z5/Win..._partition.gif

So rest assured, they will make another and another and another,
even if they aren't linked together properly or are functional
or anything. I researched this a while back, wasted my time
with reagentc, and was rewarded with my "fix" being torn
apart and broken by Microsoft afterwards. So really,
who gives a **** about how stupid the computer looks.
Why should I care, when I'm facing such a "worthy opponent" ?

You might want to check what is inside those partitions.
On more than one occasion, there was no winpe WIM in there.
And the default location on C: didn't have one either. I
haven't been able to find a web page that defines what
a "correct" setup might be. Correct enough that the software
doesn't muck about with it.

Paul

Thanks - most useful. I'm downloading 1803 right now!

--

Phil, London

On 2018-05-10 16:00, Paul wrote:

That's one thing I noticed on my Win10RLS 1803 setup,
is the stupid installer created *another* of those partitions.

This is my setup today. I just looked at this last night,
and laughed at it and shut Disk Management in disgust. Idiots.

https://s14.postimg.cc/xxhmde3z5/Win..._partition.gif

Lol, how did you manage to install Win10 with no system partition in the
first place? AFAIK, if you let it, it will create a tiny boot partition
(and apparently a recovery partition as well.) The only way I know is to
use a normal non-gpt disk and create 4 primary partitions, then tell the
installer to install over one of the primaries. This way no system
partition and no recovery partition either. No idea how you managed no
system partition but one recovery one (well, two now.)

So rest assured, they will make another and another and another,
even if they aren't linked together properly or are functional
or anything. I researched this a while back, wasted my time
with reagentc, and was rewarded with my "fix" being torn
apart and broken by Microsoft afterwards. So really,
who gives a **** about how stupid the computer looks.
Why should I care, when I'm facing such a "worthy opponent" ?

You might want to check what is inside those partitions.
On more than one occasion, there was no winpe WIM in there.
And the default location on C: didn't have one either. I
haven't been able to find a web page that defines what
a "correct" setup might be. Correct enough that the software
doesn't muck about with it.

Where's the recovery WIM on "single partition" systems, in C:\Recovery?
I tried running Explorer++ as System to have a look inside, but
according to Explorer++ there is nothing inside at all (I'd have to edit
permissions, and have a look with regular Explorer to make sure.)

Regards,

--
! _\|/_ Sylvain /
! (o o) Memberavid-Suzuki-Fdn/EFF/Red+Cross/SPCA/Planetary-Society
oO-( )-Oo When cheese gets it's picture taken, what does it say?

On 2018-05-11 22:42, B00ze wrote:

Where's the recovery WIM on "single partition" systems, in C:\Recovery?
I tried running Explorer++ as System to have a look inside, but
according to Explorer++ there is nothing inside at all (I'd have to edit
permissions, and have a look with regular Explorer to make sure.)

Never mind, I ran 7zFM as System and had a look and sure enough, the WIM
is there. Explorer++ is really not ideal, I really have to get something
decent to replace regular Explorer with...

Regards,

--
! _\|/_ Sylvain /
! (o o) Memberavid-Suzuki-Fdn/EFF/Red+Cross/SPCA/Planetary-Society
oO-( )-Oo Beam Me Up Scotty - No, Scotty, that's not what I meant.

B00ze wrote:
On 2018-05-11 22:42, B00ze wrote:

Where's the recovery WIM on "single partition" systems, in C:\Recovery?
I tried running Explorer++ as System to have a look inside, but
according to Explorer++ there is nothing inside at all (I'd have to edit
permissions, and have a look with regular Explorer to make sure.)

Never mind, I ran 7zFM as System and had a look and sure enough, the WIM
is there. Explorer++ is really not ideal, I really have to get something
decent to replace regular Explorer with...

Regards,

I use TestDisk to look in 0x27 partitions. There is a "file listing"
option.

https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

As for the original partition layout, I didn't do anything special.
That OS has an interesting history, in that it activated, but
no qualifying OS was present at install time. And I think at the
time it was a clean install, and I always use the Custom button,
then tell it to "use the whole disk" effectively. And it picks
a layout. I don't think they give you enough control to actually
do something useful at that level, as they just override whatever
you want to do, if they want to create yet more partitions.

*******

I have removed the excess partition from my Win7 setup.
Once you do that, then you can't use BitLocker (only
matters if the Win7 SKU supports BitLocker).

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=409

But I generally don't spend a lot of time tidying up
Windows 10 stuff. At least, as long as I have enough
partitions to get by.

And the one time I re-wired the reagentc thing, I did
that so I could make a "recovery USB key", complete with
OS image and installed programs. But this was more of a
bar bet thing, than a practical solution, as I use
backups if I want to repair some "damage". The recovery
key just isn't my style. But once I got reagentc
fixed up, I needed to try to make a USB key, just
to prove something related to it worked.

Paul

In article ,
says...

On 10/05/2018 17:57, Philip Herlihy wrote:
After having to replace my W10 system disk, I decided to have a go at
deleting three of the four "recovery partitions" which had accumulated
(dating back to Windows 8.0).

Somehow I'm managed to break the last one (Version 1709, so far).

I've tried fooling around with the DISM and REAGENTC commands. Dism
managed to create an image of my C: drive - full-size, at 63GB. So I
tried doing the same with a "Recovery Drive" USB stick. I saved the WIM
file to a partition I'd recreated after my system partition, and I
managed to get ReagentC to register and enable it, but when I tried to
use it (tried to get a command-prompt boot) my machine just sat there
"Please wait" for an unconvincing amount of time. I've now deleted the
partition and extended the system partition to the end of the disk - I'm
rather wondering if the 1803 update might fix it when I get that.

Any advice? I realise I can still use the USB drive if I run into
problems (and I'll take an occasional system image) but it would be
satisfying to get back to having a "proper" recovery partition.



Try this 10 minutes Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUBTMkkKdaU


I saw this, and it's very good. The only caveat is that it requires 6GB
for a full installer, rather than around 500MB for the normal Recovery
Partition. That difference can matter on today's SSDs which are smaller
than spinners.


--

Phil, London

In article ,
says...

After having to replace my W10 system disk, I decided to have a go at
deleting three of the four "recovery partitions" which had accumulated
(dating back to Windows 8.0).

Somehow I'm managed to break the last one (Version 1709, so far).

I've tried fooling around with the DISM and REAGENTC commands. Dism
managed to create an image of my C: drive - full-size, at 63GB. So I
tried doing the same with a "Recovery Drive" USB stick. I saved the WIM
file to a partition I'd recreated after my system partition, and I
managed to get ReagentC to register and enable it, but when I tried to
use it (tried to get a command-prompt boot) my machine just sat there
"Please wait" for an unconvincing amount of time. I've now deleted the
partition and extended the system partition to the end of the disk - I'm
rather wondering if the 1803 update might fix it when I get that.

Any advice? I realise I can still use the USB drive if I run into
problems (and I'll take an occasional system image) but it would be
satisfying to get back to having a "proper" recovery partition.


More in hope than expectation I deleted all the Recovery partitions
(four!) on my GPT disk using Disk Management to delete the volumes,
leaving them as unallocated space.

I then used Acronis Disk Director to move the OS partition "back" so as
to make use of the free space. Back in Disk Management, I extended the
OS partition "forward" to occupy all the remaining space on the disk.

This left three partitions visible in Disk Management:
* 500 MB System partition (FAT32)
* 40 MB DIAGS partition (FAT32, Dell)
* 465 GB OS partition (boot) -- running Windows 10 version 1709

Then I used Windows Update to search for and install the new (1803)
version of Windows.

Once that had completed, I now had four partitions:
* 500 MB System partition (FAT32)
* 40 MB DIAGS partition (FAT32, Dell)
* 464 GB OS partition (NTFS, boot) -- W10 version 1803 ### shrunk
* 469 MB "Unknown" (Recovery) partition (NTFS) ### NEW
Diskpart also shows a 128 MB "Reserved" partition which doesn't show in
Disk Management.

I've tested the Recovery partition, and it seems ok - I managed to get
it to boot in Command Prompt mode.

Disk Management annotated screenshot:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1xt...0Gaz-tfy36FrnX
--

Phil, London

In article , says...

On 2018-05-10 16:00, Paul wrote:

That's one thing I noticed on my Win10RLS 1803 setup,
is the stupid installer created *another* of those partitions.

This is my setup today. I just looked at this last night,
and laughed at it and shut Disk Management in disgust. Idiots.

https://s14.postimg.cc/xxhmde3z5/Win..._partition.gif

Lol, how did you manage to install Win10 with no system partition in the
first place? AFAIK, if you let it, it will create a tiny boot partition
(and apparently a recovery partition as well.) The only way I know is to
use a normal non-gpt disk and create 4 primary partitions, then tell the
installer to install over one of the primaries. This way no system
partition and no recovery partition either. No idea how you managed no
system partition but one recovery one (well, two now.)

....

As I understand it, W10 will install without the additional "System"
partition if you install to a disk with all space already partitioned.
The System partition and the OS partition become one.

--

Phil, London

On 2018-05-12 08:46, Philip Herlihy wrote:

In article , says...

On 2018-05-10 16:00, Paul wrote:

That's one thing I noticed on my Win10RLS 1803 setup,
is the stupid installer created *another* of those partitions.

This is my setup today. I just looked at this last night,
and laughed at it and shut Disk Management in disgust. Idiots.

https://s14.postimg.cc/xxhmde3z5/Win..._partition.gif

Lol, how did you manage to install Win10 with no system partition in the
first place? AFAIK, if you let it, it will create a tiny boot partition
(and apparently a recovery partition as well.) The only way I know is to
use a normal non-gpt disk and create 4 primary partitions, then tell the
installer to install over one of the primaries. This way no system
partition and no recovery partition either. No idea how you managed no
system partition but one recovery one (well, two now.)

As I understand it, W10 will install without the additional "System"
partition if you install to a disk with all space already partitioned.
The System partition and the OS partition become one.

Indeed, but Paul managed to make it create a "recovery" partition, so
presumably there was space for an extra partition in the table ;-) And
he ended-up with TWO recovery partitions, so clearly there are some free
partitions on that disk (could be a GPT disk.)

Regards,

--
! _\|/_ Sylvain /
! (o o) Memberavid-Suzuki-Fdn/EFF/Red+Cross/SPCA/Planetary-Society
oO-( )-Oo How can you tell when the blue cheese goes bad?

In article , says...

On 2018-05-12 08:46, Philip Herlihy wrote:

In article , says...

On 2018-05-10 16:00, Paul wrote:

That's one thing I noticed on my Win10RLS 1803 setup,
is the stupid installer created *another* of those partitions.

This is my setup today. I just looked at this last night,
and laughed at it and shut Disk Management in disgust. Idiots.

https://s14.postimg.cc/xxhmde3z5/Win..._partition.gif

Lol, how did you manage to install Win10 with no system partition in the
first place? AFAIK, if you let it, it will create a tiny boot partition
(and apparently a recovery partition as well.) The only way I know is to
use a normal non-gpt disk and create 4 primary partitions, then tell the
installer to install over one of the primaries. This way no system
partition and no recovery partition either. No idea how you managed no
system partition but one recovery one (well, two now.)

As I understand it, W10 will install without the additional "System"
partition if you install to a disk with all space already partitioned.
The System partition and the OS partition become one.

Indeed, but Paul managed to make it create a "recovery" partition, so
presumably there was space for an extra partition in the table ;-) And
he ended-up with TWO recovery partitions, so clearly there are some free
partitions on that disk (could be a GPT disk.)


As I understand it (!) if you install to a fully-partitioned disk with
no spare space it'll combine the system and OS partitions, but a later
updgrade will shrink the OS partition to create space for Recovery. I
think!

--

Phil, London

Philip Herlihy wrote:
In article , says...
On 2018-05-12 08:46, Philip Herlihy wrote:

In article , says...
On 2018-05-10 16:00, Paul wrote:

That's one thing I noticed on my Win10RLS 1803 setup,
is the stupid installer created *another* of those partitions.

This is my setup today. I just looked at this last night,
and laughed at it and shut Disk Management in disgust. Idiots.

https://s14.postimg.cc/xxhmde3z5/Win..._partition.gif
Lol, how did you manage to install Win10 with no system partition in the
first place? AFAIK, if you let it, it will create a tiny boot partition
(and apparently a recovery partition as well.) The only way I know is to
use a normal non-gpt disk and create 4 primary partitions, then tell the
installer to install over one of the primaries. This way no system
partition and no recovery partition either. No idea how you managed no
system partition but one recovery one (well, two now.)
As I understand it, W10 will install without the additional "System"
partition if you install to a disk with all space already partitioned.
The System partition and the OS partition become one.
Indeed, but Paul managed to make it create a "recovery" partition, so
presumably there was space for an extra partition in the table ;-) And
he ended-up with TWO recovery partitions, so clearly there are some free
partitions on that disk (could be a GPT disk.)


As I understand it (!) if you install to a fully-partitioned disk with
no spare space it'll combine the system and OS partitions, but a later
updgrade will shrink the OS partition to create space for Recovery. I
think!

It'll be interesting to see what it does, when it
runs out of partitions to use :-)

Paul