This post is more than 5 years old
20 Posts
0
3818
Keep old recovery partition?
I have a Dell Inspiron 660s Desktop. It came with Windows 8. I created recovery CDs. I upgraded to Win. 8.1 and later to 10. I created a recovery USB drive for Win. 10.
The largest (by far) recovery partition is 11.83 GB. This came with the computer originally. I assume it is the Factory Recovery Partition, though someone speculated that it might be used for hibernation. My question is whether there is any reason to retain this partition. I am sure I would never want to return to Win. 8 and get back to where I am now by putting on vast quantities of maintenance. But I don't want to delete a hibernation partition or a one that might somehow be useful as a stage for a quick recovery to Windows 10.
Philip_Yip
7 Technologist
7 Technologist
•
16K Posts
0
September 24th, 2016 03:00
The recovery partition is obsolete.
When you next want a fresh start you will be able to download a Windows 10 .iso (of the latest build) and clean install removing all partitions and letting Windows 10 build whats necessary. With Windows 10 Microsoft actually listened to user feedback and made a proper digital deployment so there will be no more downloading >5 years worth of updates.
speedstep
9 Legend
9 Legend
•
47K Posts
1
September 23rd, 2016 08:00
The recovery usb you created will not work if you remove this. The partition is required for windows vista 7 8 or 10.
rickhev
20 Posts
0
September 23rd, 2016 10:00
Interesting. I have never heard this before. Can you provide a reference for your answer?
I'm pretty sure that the Win. 10 recovery USB copied this partition as well, though I had no idea that it was required. On my PC the Win. 10 recovery disk required 16 GB. On my wife's HP desktop it required only 4 GB.
speedstep
9 Legend
9 Legend
•
47K Posts
1
September 23rd, 2016 10:00
If you touch the partition it will alter it rendering it useless.
You cannot recover to a partition structure that is different from when it was created. You will receive one or more cryptic errors.
"error 0x4001100200001005 if problems persists contact Dell support"
You can put a bullet in its head or install a new drive of the same size or larger. (This wipes out ALL DATA FOREVER)
Perform the following steps to wipe the disk:
In recovery console, type DISKPART
At the diskpart prompt, type LIST DISK
Note the number of the disk you want to restore the OS to
Type SELECT DISK 0 (0 or whatever the number of the disk is)
It will say "Disk 0 is the selected disk"
Type CLEAN
When it finishes, exit, and retry the restoration.
speedstep
9 Legend
9 Legend
•
47K Posts
1
September 23rd, 2016 11:00
No work.
Request denied.
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-update/got-error-0x4001100200001005-during-recovery/0c3e2211-6bc3-424a-9c71-c23d83a213a0?auth=1
rickhev
20 Posts
0
September 23rd, 2016 11:00
The article below seems to be encouraging people to delete old recovery partitions. In fact, the MS recovery disk creation process asks you if you want to delete them. (I did not select that option myself.) Are you saying that a recovery disk can be used to recover either to a drive with the same partition structure or to a clean drive? What if I deleted the 12 GB recovery partition and then created a new recovery disk? Would that work?
www.howtogeek.com/.../
rickhev
20 Posts
0
September 23rd, 2016 12:00
Unless I am missing something, the article you reference above and the one it references offer no explanation of why the recoveries failed.
rickhev
20 Posts
0
September 23rd, 2016 13:00
Thanks for your help. I guess I'll keep the old partition as a safeguard. Microsoft copies it to the recovery drive, making it theoretically possible to restore the PC to the original factory-installed Win. 8. Whether this procedure would work in practice is problematical. I doubt if I would want to do it anyway, since it would be easier to install a fresh Win. 10 on a clean hard drive.
speedstep
9 Legend
9 Legend
•
47K Posts
1
September 23rd, 2016 13:00
error 0x4001100200001005
contact dell support
I am not dell