How to remove the recovery. How to delete all partitions on a hard disk in the command line

Almost all computers that come with an operating system Windows 8 have a dedicated system recovery partition consisting of important files needed for a reset or Windows 8 recovery to factory condition. recovery partition typically consumes about 15 GB of disk space. Since most computers that are available today can offer at least 500 GB of disk space, users may not feel the need to free up more disk space. But from users who have purchased a computer with 64 or 128 GB SSD (Solid State Drive), they may want to free up some space by deleting this system recovery partition.

Moment restore partitions consists of recovering images and other important files before deleting the recovery partition, you must first go to recovery partition USB flash drive .After moving recovery partition delete partition recovery... You can then use a new USB recovery drive to restore Windows 8 to factory settings.

Follow the step by step instructions below to move recovery partition to a USB stick and then delete recovery partition in Windows 8.

NOTE: This procedure only works on Windows 8 and doesn't work on Windows 7.

Step 1: Connect a USB drive that has at least 16 GB of disk space (you may need more USB space if recovery partition over 16 GB) and back up all data to a safe location. This USB stick will be erased.

Step 2: Switch to Start screen, type Create recovery disc change search filter Parameters(see picture), and then press Enter to launch the Restore Disk Wizard. If you see UAC, just click the "Yes" button.

Step 3: After starting the Restore Disk Wizard, check the parameter Copy the PC recovery partition to the recovery drive, and then click Next.

Step 4: Select your USB storage device and click Next.

Step 5: You will see the message “Everything on the disk will be deleted. If you have personal files on disk, make sure you back up your files. ” Since you have already transferred all the data from USB, press the button Create to start transfer recovery partition to the selected USB drive. Depending on the size Windows recovery partition, this process can take several minutes (or hours to complete).

Step 6: When Windows 8 will complete copying recovery partition to the USB stick, you will see the message “You can also delete recovery partition on your PC to free up some disk space ”, and a parameter named Delete recovery partition.

Step 7: Click the button Delete recovery partition to see an error message that says “You can free up some disk space by deleting the system recovery partition, but you won't be able to update or restore your computer again without a recovery disc. ”Since you have already migrated recovery partition to a USB stick, you can safely delete disk recovery partition.

Click the button Delete and recovery partition will be deleted. After the deed is done Windows 8 will show you how much disk space you got by deleting the recovery partition... Good luck!

After installing Windows 10, the user may notice a small hidden partition (from 300 to 450 MB). It contains the "Recovery" folder, and it contains the "WindowsRE" directory with a WIM image (Winre.wim), which contains the system recovery tools. The same tools are available on the installation media. Therefore, users are often interested in how to remove the recovery partition on a hard drive with Windows 10, attaching it to the general volume. Let's take a closer look at this process.

Step-by-step instructions for deleting Windows 10 recovery partition

If you click "Start", "Settings", select the "Update and Security" section, and then "Recovery", "Special boot options" and click "Restart now", the system will restart the computer and you will be taken to the operating system setup environment.

In this environment, you can choose to restore the system, roll back to an earlier state, perform various settings using the command line.

Despite the usefulness of all these tools, they are on the installation disc or flash drive. Therefore, if you are confident that you will be rolling back Windows 10 and fixing errors using the installation media, you can delete the recovery partition. This can be done as follows:

We create bootable media of the same version and bitness of Windows 10 that you have installed (if there is no previously created installation flash drive or disk).
Then we boot from this flash drive. The operating system installation window will appear. Press the key combination "Shift + F10". The command line will appear.

Further, in order, we introduce the following tasks.

Diskpart;
lis dis (a list of all installed disks will appear);
sel dis 0 (select a drive with installed Windows 10);
lis par (command to view disk partitions).

The following commands remove three hidden Windows 10 partitions:

Recovery in 450 MB;
System partition 100 MB or (EFI);
MSR of 128 MB. This is the partition that is required for GPT partitioning (it is not visible in Disk Management).

We leave only the partition with the installed operating system. To delete these three sections, enter the following commands in order:

sel par 1 (first section);
del par override (delete the first section);
sel par 2 (second section);
del par override (delete the second section);
sel par 3 (third section);
del par override (remove the third section).

At the next stage, enter create par efi size = 100 to create an encrypted (EFI) system partition of 100 MB.
Next, enter format fs = FAT3 (to format and create a partition in FAT32).
Now we create a 128 MB partition, entered the command create par msr size = 128.
Click lis vol. A list of disk partitions appears. We see that the partition with Windows 10 is assigned a drive letter (C :).

IMPORTANT! In your case, there may be a different letter.

Enter exit to exit diskpart.
bcdboot C: \ Windows, where C is the letter of the partition with the installed operating system.
Exit.

After completing these operations, it is worth restarting the computer. Now go to "Disk Management".

In this tool, we see that the deletion was successful and freed up space appeared. It must be attached to the local drive C. For this purpose, we use the AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard Edition program.

We launch the program. Select the disk to which we want to attach free space. In the menu on the left, select "Resize / Move".

Check the box "I need to move this section" and drag the slider to the limit to give all the space to the C drive.

IMPORTANT! We make sure that there are zeros in the "Unoccupied space" section.

Click "OK" and click "Apply".

Next, a window will open. We click "Go".

The computer monitor will blink as the program enters a special boot mode. A window will appear. We click "Yes".

The system will reboot. The freed space will be attached on a black background.

The recovery partition on Windows has been removed and joined to the shared space.

To learn how to delete the recovery partition in Windows 10, see the video:

Today we will talk about deleting non-system partitions. I will say that deleting a section as a whole is most often associated with the participation of the user himself. Of course, a partition can be damaged by virus programs or a normal hard disk crash, but, as I said, the user is a frequent cause of such troubles. Moreover, he could experiment with any software with which he was not ready to work and did a bunch of bad things.

The most interesting thing is that it is not so easy to delete a partition from a Windows system, because it is protected from self-destruction. To delete a partition, system or non-system, you have to try terribly. The user may have known what he was doing, but due to carelessness he deleted the wrong section. What if it had important data on it? That's right, continue to be more careful.

Today we will deal with fixing such problems. How to recover deleted partitions? Quite simply, we'll use a free software called.

Like any other similar program, AOMEI Partition Assistant there is also a paid version, which gives additional options, fortunately, the free version will be enough for us to restore partitions. You can download it from the official website.

When can recovery help and when not?

Before you get started, you need to clarify a couple of points that are very important. Yes, we will restore deleted partitions, moreover, all the data that was on them will remain intact, they will have the same volume and the same place in the partition table. If you have accidentally formatted the partition, then using AOMEI Partition Assistant, you will not be able to recover the lost data. Fortunately, to do it, you can use good utilities, such as R-studio, Disk Drill and many others.

If, when deleting a partition, the disk space was redistributed, and new ones were created in place of the partitions that were deleted, then it is also a moot point. Recovery can be carried out using the same programs that I indicated just above.

It so happens that the section is not actually deleted, but a letter is simply not assigned to it, the letter of the section can fly off due to a failure in the system or thanks, again, to the user. To understand whether the section is really not deleted, but simply does not have a letter, you need to go to the disk management utility. To do this, we press the keys Win + R and in the "Run" window that opens, enter the command:

diskmgmt.msc

The section that does not have a letter will be OK, but will be shaded. You need to right-click on it and select the item "Change drive letter or drive path".

If the section is deleted, then it will be written "Not allocated", and the top strip will not be blue, but black.

Now, if you understand that your partition has been deleted, let's start restoring it.

How do I recover a deleted partition?

As soon as we have downloaded and installed the AOMEI Partition Assistant program, launch it and get to work. In the program window, the deleted partition will be defined as "Unoccupied" space.

Click on the item in the top menu "Master" and select the item "Partition Recovery Wizard"... The same is in the left panel of the program.

At this stage, you need to select the desired HDD, if there are several of them installed, then we have to click on the unallocated space and click "Further".

Here we must first choose "Quick search", if the process does not find the deleted partitions, then use "Full search".

As soon as the deleted section is found, put a tick in front of it and click on the button "Go".

The end of the process will look like this:

Now the deleted partition has been recovered, and the data that has not been damaged on it has been recovered.

If the search has found several deleted partitions, then you just need to select all the items with a checkmark.

How do I restore a system partition?

This option is complicated by the fact that when restoring system partitions, for example, a partition with an operating system, we will use bootable media. To create such a media, you will have to have a working system, so we will install the AOMEI Partition Assistant program on it and use it to create a bootable Live disk.

In the left panel of the program, we have to click "Make a bootable CD master" and in the window that opens, select the item "Create a simple Windows PE"... The second option also takes place, but there is a lot of fiddling with additional software. So, we chose the first item and clicked "Further".

Now we need to select the type of bootable media: optical disk, flash drive or image. I will choose 3 option, you can either.

Now we insert a disk or a USB flash drive into a computer with a remote system partition and boot from it. In the screenshot below, we can see the merging of two partitions: the C: drive and the boot sector. To restore the partition, we follow the same method when we restored a non-system partition.

Launch Partition Recovery Wizard and select unallocated space. Click on next.

First we choose "Quick search", and if he did not give results, then "Full search".

Mark the found sections with checkmarks and click "Go".

That's all, now you can restart your computer and boot from your hard drive, Windows should boot as usual.

Hello admin! For the second time in my life I buy myself a laptop and I just can't figure out the hidden partitions on its hard drive! I bought my first laptop for a long time, yetwith Windows 7 preinstalled in 2009 and there were two hidden partitions, yesterday I bought a laptop with Windows 8.1, and it already has three hidden partitions, and after the upgrade to Windows 10 there were already four, and one IT specialist said that there is also a fifth partition, but you can see it with command line only, or special program! Explain to a non-professional why they are needed, because in total they take up 20 GB of disk space on my laptop.

Hello friends! On all modern laptops with Windows 7, 8.1, 10 operating systems installed, you will see hidden partitions on the hard drive. Why they are needed, how to view their contents and what will happen if you delete them, I will tell you about all this in today's article.

Hidden partitions on laptops appeared along with the Windows 7 operating system. There were no hidden partitions on Windows XP, an installation disk with the operating system came along with the laptops, if the XP was unstable, then it could easily be reinstalled using the distribution kit.

Windows Vista

With the advent of (in 2007) operating system Windows Vista the rules have changed, when buying a laptop, no installation disk was no longer included, but on a laptop it was possible to create recovery DVDs and, if necessary, restore Vista with the help of them. Many laptop models already came with a pre-packaged recovery disc.

Windows 7

In 2009, on laptops with Windows 7 preinstalled, I first saw two hidden partitions, the first with a size of 9 GB Good (recovery partition) and the second System Reserved (Reserved by the system) with a volume of 100 MB.

Note: on laptops of many manufacturers, on the contrary, the first section was System Reserved 100 MB, and the last (third or fourth) recovery partition is 9-15 GB.

Naturally, I immediately wanted to know what is inside these sections! E if you assign a letter the first hidden section -System Reserved 100 MB, then it turns out that the section containsin itself Boot storage configuration files (BCD) Boot folder and system boot manager (bootmgr file)- these files are responsible for loading the operating system.

The second section (9 GB) contained (a compressed file windows image 7 divided into several parts and the Recovery rollback program, with which it was possible to return the laptop to its factory state even if it did not boot.

Windows 8, 8.1, 10

On October 26, 2012, laptops appeared with Windows 8 installed, and a year later Windows 8.1 and they already had a UEFI BIOS with Secure Boot, and contained four hidden partitions, including the third hidden MSR service partition that is not visible in Disk Management(size 128 MB), you can see it using the command line

or any section manager hard disk, For example .

When updating Windows 8.1 before Windows 10 has one more (fifth) hidden partition

You can see all the existing partitions of your laptop hard drive not only using AOMEI Partition, but also using the command line. Run the command line as administrator, enter the commands:

diskpart

lis dis

sel dis 0

lis par

So, what are the hidden sections of the new laptop updated from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10?

How to enter a hidden section and see what's there?

Friends, if you enter the Disk Management of the laptop and click on the hidden section with the right mouse, only "Help" will open, that is, assign hidden section letter and enter it will not work.

This can be done in another way. For example, let's take a look at the hidden partition (463 MB) that was created when upgrading from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10.

Run the command line as administrator, enter the commands:

diskpart

lis vol

sel vol 1 (1 hidden partition number created when upgrading from Win 8.1 to Win 10), you may have a different number.

assign

The drive or mount point assignment was successful.

exit

To our hidden Windows partition 10 assigned the letter (E :) and it is visible in the explorer, we go into it.

The hidden section contains the Recovery folder.

The Recovery folder contains a folder WindowsRE and is already in itA custom image with Windows 10 Recovery Environment (Winre.wim).

So we have guessed the secret of this hidden section created when Windows update 8.1 to Windows 10, it contains all the emergency system recovery tools. If this hidden section is deleted, then we will not be able to restore Windows 10 in the recovery environment.

Let me remind you how the recovery environment works.

Rebooting Windows 10 while pressing the key Shift.

And we enter the Windows 10 recovery environment,

Diagnostics -> Extra options... We see all the available tools of the operating system recovery environment.

Now we format or completely delete the hidden section.

We enter the recovery environment and see that no tool is available to us.

Also, we will not be able to create a USB flash drive or a Windows 10 recovery disk, an error will be issued“We are unable to create a recovery disc on this computer. Some required files are missing. Use Windows installation media to troubleshoot the computer does not boot. That is, when restoring Windows 10, we will have to boot from the operating system distribution kit, since it also has recovery environment files.

At the end of the article, let's take a look at what is contained in the other hidden sections of the Windows 10 laptop:

1. The first hidden partition of 400 MB contains Windows 8.1 recovery environment files, in Windows folder RE is located a custom image with Windows 8.1 Recovery Environment (Winre.wim). N oh since we upgraded to Windows 10 and are not going to roll back to Windows 8.1 , then we no longer need this section and we can delete it.

2. Second hidden partition 300 MB Healthy (Encrypted (EFI) System Partition) FAT32 Contains Boot Store Configuration (BCD) files - EFI \ Microsoft \ Boot folder. This section should never be touched, otherwise you will not boot into Win 10.

3. Third hidden and not visible in Disk Management service partition MSR, required for GPT partitioning on UEFI systems, NTFS file system, size 128 MB.

4. The fourth hidden 400 MB partition we have already disassembled, on it, as on the first hidden 400 MB partition, there are files of the recovery environment, but not Windows 8.1, but Windows 10.

5. On the fifth section, in the Recovery folder, there is a factory image install.wim with Windows 8.1. Using this section, you can restore your factory settings at any time, that is, Windows 8.1.

Total: Of all the hidden partitions of a laptop that has been updated from Windows 8.1 to Win 10, only the first 400 MB partition can be deleted without consequences (but what will it give you). The rest, whatever one may say, are still needed.

By default, Windows Explorer displays only those partitions to which the user can write and work with their files. This is the system and all third-party sections, of which there can be a great many. Sometimes, for some unknown reason, the mysterious RECOVERY disk ( recovery disk), which shouldn't be displayed in principle. This guide will tell you what to do with this disc if it suddenly appears on your computer.

What kind of disk RECOVERY

Most often it is displayed on laptops and assembled computers and its size can be up to several tens of gigabytes. By default, it shouldn't be displayed - you shouldn't store information on it. Manufacturers use a recovery disc to store the utilities needed to restore the computer in the event of a problem.

Unfortunately, scientists cannot explain why the recovery disc appears. It should always be hidden, but for some reason it suddenly falls on the user. Many have reported that the Recovery disc appeared unexpectedly after updating to the Windows 10 April 2018 Update. For many users, displaying an extra disk in Explorer will not be a big problem, but the bottom line is that in the vast majority of cases, this disk is actually displayed as 100% full, and therefore a red scale will be thrown into your eyes and the system will constantly send notifications about disk full ... This is already beginning to annoy even the most patient users.

Whatever the reason for the appearance, the Recovery disk can be hidden by the built-in system tools, and this procedure will take you no more than 10 minutes. The instructions are relevant for both Windows 10 and Windows 8.1 and Windows 7.

How to hide Recovery drive in Windows 10 Explorer

Since this disc is used only for manufacturer's recovery tools, it can theoretically (and practically too) be completely removed. This will save you a few extra gigabytes per partition, but we do not recommend doing this. If you have experience in restoring your computer, most likely you will not need this instruction, since you yourself know what to do with this disc. We recommend it to other users. hide so that if a problem occurs, you can quickly return your computer to a working state using specially provided tools.

Let's look at two methods for hiding a disk and start with the simplest.

For your information: This instruction will only work if the RECOVERY drive (be it an OEM partition or a Windows system recovery disc) suddenly starts showing up in Explorer with a separate letter and 100% full space. If this disk is not visible in the system, hide it unnecessarily. Also, you will not be able to access a menu with options for regular sections. While we don't recommend deleting it, there is still a way to free up the space it takes up. This is discussed in a separate part of this manual.

How to remove the recovery partition using the command line

Another option is to use the command line. A more complex method, since the procedures are performed using commands, but we recommend trying different methods as the above method may not be available in different scenarios.

How to remove the recovery section

Although we said a couple of paragraphs above that we do not recommend that you remove the Recovery disc, we understand that the user can do whatever he wants with his PC, so after a little thought, we decided to add a way to remove the Recovery OEM disc. If you are eager to free up the extra couple of gigabytes that the recovery image is occupying, you can forcefully clear it.

Warning: Keep in mind that clearing the RECOVERY disk will make it impossible for you to restore the system to factory state without unnecessary dancing with a tambourine. If something happens to your computer, you will have to manually reinstall the operating system, all drivers and diagnostic utilities from your computer manufacturer. Before removing the Recovery disc, we advise you to look at the PC manufacturer's website and see if it offers utilities for creating such partitions.

From the instructions above, you already understood that it is most convenient to work with disks from the system utility Disk management... The only catch is that Microsoft severely restricts user options regarding reserved partitions. Roughly speaking, this is a kind of "protection from the fool." Although when you try to open the context menu of the Recovery drive, you will only see the help button, it is quite easy to bypass the built-in protection. All this is done from the Command Line using the Diskpart utility.

Run the command line as Administrator in the same way as described in the instructions above.
Enter the command diskpart and press Enter.
Next enter the command listdisk... A list appears on the command line screen physical disks. If you have only one disk in your system, split into several partitions, after entering the command listdisk will only be displayed one disk.
Now you need to select the drive on which the recovery partition is located. Enter selectdiskX... Replace the X with the disc number. For example, disk 0.
Now you need to display the list sections the selected drive. To do this, use the command listpartition.
Find a disc Recovery the occupied space of which you want to delete. Enter select partition 6... Hit Enter.
It's time to remove the disc. Enter deletepartition... After that, you will see an error message about deleting the secure disk. The command line will immediately inform you that to delete protected sections, you must specify the forced deletion parameter.
Enter the command detailpartition... The screen will display detailed information about the section, namely the type, the values of the "hidden" and "required" attributes, an additional attribute, and an offset in bytes. OEM recovery partitions use type 27. You need to change it to type 07 - normal partition file system NTFS.
Enter the command setid=07 , and then deletepartition... If that doesn't work, try typing deletepartitionoverride, after which the section will be deleted. The command line should report the successful completion of the procedure.

The space was freed up. You can now return to the utility Disk management and assign free space for any of your needs. You can expand the existing disk or create a new one.

How to create a recovery partition

Let's say you want to put the recovery disc back into the system. If your manufacturer provides the necessary tools for this, then you just need to download them and follow the instructions from the computer supplier. If not, you can try to create a recovery partition using the third-party OneKey Recovery application.

Advice: it is best to create a recovery partition on a clean operating system, on which all drivers and necessary applications are installed. Although no one can stop you from Reserve copy systems in any state, you need to understand that all the garbage that has accumulated on your system partition will be backed up to the recovery partition.

The procedure begins by creating the same recovery partition to which the application will write backup and which will be hidden. Please note that there must be enough free space on the disk - at least the amount occupied by the system at the moment. If the system disk is 40 GB busy, you will need 40 GB to create the recovery partition.

After that, the additional boot option for AOMEI OneKey Recovery will appear on the system boot menu. Select it when it becomes necessary to restore the created system backup.

This is a very simple instruction, so you shouldn't have any complications. Tell us in the comments if you have encountered something similar, and if this article helped you if a RECOVERY disk suddenly appeared on the system.