Too many partitions on drive?

Question

I want to make a Custom Recovery image so, if needed, I can refresh my system files without having to revert back to the W8 that the laptop came pre-installed with.

I believe I have enough space on my disk (see attached image) to shrink C: and create a new partition to hold this image, but I have been advised that there may be too many partitions on the disk already.

Most of the partitions appear to be recovery related. I recently refreshed my system back to W8 and believe I may have acquired an additional partition in the process. I suspect this because I have 2 identical Dell laptops, one of which has been refreshed, one of which hasn't. The refreshed laptop has an additional recovery partition (5th in the list, size 350mb) which does not exist on the non-refreshed laptop.

Can anyone advise please:

Should I have ALL these recovery partitions?

As my other laptop does not have that 350mb partition, how did I get it?

Can I either delete a partition (the 350mb seems the obvious one) or reallocate it for a different use?

Or can I safely shrink the C: partition to create an additional partition to put a Custom Recovery image?

Lobbers · Accepted Answer

Thank you.

I already have recovery images on usb and full system images on external HDD.

The Custom Recovery Image would be used to refresh the Windows files, not to recover the whole system. Windows' own guidance gives a filepath to save this image which is within C: though I know you can save it elsewhere, either in another partition on the same disk or on an HDD.

It is important that the drive letter for the image doesn't change, otherwise it may not be found when needed, and Windows will use the original refresh image (which is essentially the OEM factory image - I know, I've had to do it). Sometimes when I connect the external HDD the drive letter changes which is why I was looking to create a new partition on the internal disk.

I'm not keen to delete the 8.31gb recovery partition as I've read forum posts where people have had problems recovering their system after deleting this. Keeping it gives me a few potential options if there are problems.

But you have answered my question about shrinking the OS partition so thank you for this :emotion-1:

Raczo · Answer

You are using a computer with UEFI firmware and a GPT disk. To work, GPT boot disks need several partitions in addition to the OS (C:) partition.

Don´t put recovery images in the boot disk, they will be lost if the disk fails. Put them in an external USB disk.

To create recovery images, use a third party imaging program such as Macrium Reflect or Terabyte Image for Windows.

Create a backup image of the whole disk. After that, you can delete the 8.31 GB recovery partition, which contains the Dell factory image. In the resulting unallocated space you can create a new partition for data. Don´t delete any of the other partitions, including the small 500-450-350 MB partitions.

You can shrink the OS (C:) partition. In the resulting unallocated space you can create another data partition.

When you have the new partition scheme in place, create another backup image of the whole disk.

Mary G · Answer

You need an external hard drive for backups and system image that you can make for free by using File History after Searching Control Panel for Recovery.

Lobbers · Answer

Thank you but this answer is not really relevant to my question.

I already make regular full system images using both Windows' own AND 3rd party software and save these on an external HDD.

My question was related to making a Custom Recovery Image (which is NOT a full system image) which enables you to refresh the Windows files to your own specification instead of having to refresh back to the original installation. Which (given 2 refreshes back to W8 plus a system image restore in the space of a week) is a very attractive option :emotion-1:.

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Too many partitions on drive?

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