Why do I have so many Recovery Partitions?

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PhoenixRestored

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Dec 22, 2014
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I am using Insider Builds of Windows 10, and I have 7 Recovery Partitions that are taking up a large amount of space and have gotten in the way of me extending my primary partition from the unallocated space in front of all the Recovery Partitions. Could someone tell me why this is and if I need all of them, or if there is anyway to tell which are important?

Also, on a side note, is there anyway to move that unallocated space to extend my primary partition?
 
Solution
drtweak
that is why.

ever since windows 8, most OEMs install windows as a uEFI boot. The way MS makes them partition things out you can read here.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd744301(v=ws.10).aspx

If you are on windows 10, and have no plans on going back at all and don't like it i would recommned backing everything up and reinstalling windows 10 and erase all the partitions. That will clean everything up.

If you can't do that then make a Windows Recovery disk, go in and delete those partitions, and restart and see if it he PC starts up. if it doesn't you will need to boot off the disk and rebuild the MBR
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hang-the-9

hang-the-9

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Mar 25, 2010
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Without some info about the system impossible to tell which of those partitions is needed. Was this a pre-built system that had an OEM setup of Windows on it? That would have had a recovery partition from that. Past that, what have you been doing to it and how have you installed Windows 10. You also said you have been using "builds" of Windows 10 as in more than one. You likely have been creating a recovery partition every time you installed 10.

If you want to clear them all, backup your files, delete all partitions off the drive, create a new one, install Windows on that.
 
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PhoenixRestored

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Dec 22, 2014
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Yes, it was pre-built with Windows 8, in which I upgraded to 8.1, and then multiple builds of Windows 10. What would be the danger of removing all but one or two recovery partitions without knowing what was in them?

Also, is there a way to extend my primary partition with the unallocated space?


 
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drtweak

drtweak

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Sep 17, 2012
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that is why.

ever since windows 8, most OEMs install windows as a uEFI boot. The way MS makes them partition things out you can read here.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd744301(v=ws.10).aspx

If you are on windows 10, and have no plans on going back at all and don't like it i would recommned backing everything up and reinstalling windows 10 and erase all the partitions. That will clean everything up.

If you can't do that then make a Windows Recovery disk, go in and delete those partitions, and restart and see if it he PC starts up. if it doesn't you will need to boot off the disk and rebuild the MBR
 
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PhoenixRestored

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Dec 22, 2014
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Ah ok thanks a ton, what backup program would you recommend?
 
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drtweak

drtweak

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Sep 17, 2012
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I use Macrium Reflect.

When you install it and it ask to make a Recovery DVD/USB Drive DO IT. Then you can make an image of that drive and save it to another drive you have (as long as you have enough space to fit all your data. it does compress the image so its not like a 100GB of data will be a 100GB. depending on what kind of data it can get upto a 50% compression ratio.

But once you have a backup, and then delete those partitions if you want (ONLY DELETE THE ONES AFTER THE OS PARTITION!!!!) and then try rebooting. If it doesn't boot you can boot off that recovery disk, and from there one of the options if you click on one of the menu items at the top is Fix Windows boot. just follow the wizard and it should fix you boot no problem.

If it doesn't then you can boot off the disk and then restore the backup image you made and you should then be back to where you started.

I have not personally deleted the partitions before so not sure what will happen.
 
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