How to resize partitions splitted by recovery partition.

Hello everybody,

Recently I got my new laptop running under Windows 8.1 and was surprised with how the partitions were sized.
Here is the screenshot from the DiskManagement:



So I shrank the size of C:\ disk as you can see and got unallocated space. I want to attach that space to D:\ disk. I thought that is possible to extend recovery partition to unallocated space, then shrank recovery partition, and newly appeared unallocated then attach to D:/ disk. But failed with that.

I don't think that I really need those 900Mb and 350Mb recovery partitions and that they are useful, but it would be unwise to delete them while I don't know what are they for. Latter 20Gb recovery partition at the picture at least has the significant size to store something helpful.

Thanks in advance!

It appears you are one of the folks that updated to 8.1 in a specific manner and was left with the 350 MB partition. If this is the case, that partition is in control of your Recovery options. If you want to verify, use the command below in an Administrative command prompt and look at the partition number.

reagentc /info

Moving or deleting the partition might result in breaking your repair options. But frankly, I can't really suggest anything to you, considering the presence of the 900 MB Recovery Partition and not knowing what it does.

considering the presence of the 900 MB Recovery Partition and not knowing what it does.

Click to expand...

OEM manufacturer's Recovery tools.

Saltgrass said:

It appears you are one of the folks that updated to 8.1 in a specific manner and was left with the 350 MB partition. If this is the case, that partition is in control of your Recovery options. If you want to verify, use the command below in an Administrative command prompt and look at the partition number.

reagentc /info

Moving or deleting the partition might result in breaking your repair options. But frankly, I can't really suggest anything to you, considering the presence of the 900 MB Recovery Partition and not knowing what it does.

Click to expand...

In my laptop also while update, new recovery partition was created at the end of windows 8.1 partition.
As per your post, I tried the command and the result is as follows.
Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) and system reset configuration
Information:

Windows RE status: Enabled
Windows RE location: \\?\GLOBALROOT\device\harddisk0\partition5\Recovery\WindowsRE
Boot Configuration Data (BCD) identifier: 4647f39c-38be-11e3-bf62-50465d3bd110
Recovery image location: \\?\GLOBALROOT\device\harddisk0\partition11\RecoveryImage
Recovery image index: 2
Custom image location:
Custom image index: 0

current partition info is as follows.
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *500.1 GB disk1
1: EFI 314.6 MB disk1s1
2: DE94BBA4-06D1-4D40-A16A-BFD50179D6AC 629.1 MB disk1s2
3: Microsoft Reserved 134.2 MB disk1s3
4: Microsoft Basic Data Windows 107.0 GB disk1s4
5: DE94BBA4-06D1-4D40-A16A-BFD50179D6AC 367.0 MB disk1s5
6: Microsoft Basic Data Data 85.6 GB disk1s6
7: Microsoft Basic Data LVGEFI 313.5 MB disk1s7
8: Microsoft Basic Data Audio 85.9 GB disk1s8
9: Microsoft Basic Data PhotosVideos 166.2 GB disk1s9
10: Apple_HFS HACKINTOSH 32.1 GB disk1s10
11: DE94BBA4-06D1-4D40-A16A-BFD50179D6AC 21.5 GB disk1s11
a)Is both the recovery partitions 2 and 5 are required along with 11 which is actual recovery partition that cam with machine.
b)Is partition 2 is outdated and not required as reagentc does not specify anything about partition2
c) if case b) is true is there any way to shift it to partition 2 and make reagentc to know that now 2 is recovery partition instead of 5?

I think what I would do is move the 350 recovery partition up next to C: then you could merge the unallocated space with D:

As Theog says, the 900 MB partition is probably the OEM Tools. Is it outdated...it still might be used in conjunction with the last partition to restore the system to earlier install. I do not know if it would work..I don't think anyone has tried it. Maybe something for me to do, if I can.

The 20 GB partition is where the image is the OEM uses to set your system back to factory conditions.

What did you use to get the partition numbers, and am not familiar with it and don't understand some of the info.

Saltgrass said:

I think what I would do is move the 350 recovery partition up next to C: then you could merge the unallocated space with D:

As Theog says, the 900 MB partition is probably the OEM Tools. Is it outdated...it still might be used in conjunction with the last partition to restore the system to earlier install. I do not know if it would work..I don't think anyone has tried it. Maybe something for me to do, if I can.

The 20 GB partition is where the image is the OEM uses to set your system back to factory conditions.

What did you use to get the partition numbers, and am not familiar with it and don't understand some of the info.

Click to expand...

I dual boot with osx. I got this info from osx diskutil.
Windows diskpart gives this as below.

partitions

Saltgrass,
Those partions are the standard after upgrading to 8.1, from the following start point

OEM .. W8 install .. upgade to W8.1..
1) does not show hidden partition
2) disk management does not show them in the correct order

gonna be lots of fun when people try move/resize partitions and putting a recovery partition between standard set up (C and Data), to me is .....

roy

Should the 300MB recovery partition be considered a way to boot winRE without depending on C: ?
Should the Recovery Image partition be considered a completely different rescue option? (i.e. being just the image to use from Advanced Start Up and winRE boot options?)

I do not think it is a good idea to have Advanced Start Up, winRE and Recovery Image all on the same drive especially in the event of drive failure.

Ref: partitioning - consider Sample: Configure UEFI/GPT-Based Hard Drive Partitions by Using Windows PE and DiskPart

At one time I had two boot partitions up and running at home--a Legacy UEFI Win8 install and a UEFI mode Win8 install partition, just to analyze the differences in the two (switching between them via a boot manager.) Eventually I saw no further use for Legacy mode boots and so deleted the entire Legacy boot partition and have been booting from the UEFI install since.

Yes, no one should be monkeying around with the EFI standard boot partitions that an EFI 8.x install makes (including those your particular OEM may have set aside for his own use & utilities.) IIRC, EFI Win8 installations cannot boot natively from NTFS but the boot is handed off to your C:\ NTFS partition by the FAT32 partitions that precede it on the boot drive. Also, the partitions Win8 makes in a EFI installation of itself are very small--amounting to less than .5 gig (less than half of one gig of drive space.) Any partitions set aside by an OEM in addition to those, or larger than those, are customized changes to Win8 made by the hardware OEM.

There are two types of Win8 EFI Windows installations.

1) Windows is installed in EFI mode

2) Windows is installed in "Legacy" mode

You can quickly verify which version you have by running msinfo32.exe. A genuine EFI installation of Windows 8 will say:

Bios Mode :UEFI

Secure Boot State: On

(You can actually turn this state Off if you please, but that sort of defeats the whole point of a UEFI install of Win8, imo.)

A UEFI computer that is running a non-EFI installation of Windows 8, IIRC, will say:

Bios Mode: Legacy

Secure Boot State: OFF

In this state the UEFI-based computer running Win8 installs and acts like a non-UEFI computer running Windows 7 or 8, and is capable of booting directly from an NTFS boot partition, accordingly, and the UEFI acts just like a regular bios. In a legacy mode install of Win8 you cannot turn the Secure Boot State to ON. Ever. The 100MB and the 300MB Win8 UEFI-mode partitions will not be present in a Legacy Win8 EFI installation. (As far as I can recall.)

Should the 300MB recovery partition be considered a way to boot winRE without depending on C: ?

Click to expand...

Found a reliable source indicating the recommended/default 8.1 upgrade using the downloaded setup.exe should be using the 300MB recovery partition. see the Hard Drive Partitions section at bottom of Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) Overview
Regardless of boot mode there is a use for these phantom recovery partitions the question is; "why is windows not using them?"
What is missing from the created ISO that stops winRE from being installed to recovery partition when using installation media?

I opened a new thread http://www.eightforums.com/installa...roken-recovery-options-after-8-1-upgrade.html