Win 10 Disk Management / Partitions Dilemma / What are these extra partitions?

[arda21]

After I had a technical support request to HP, my laptop was back, However I realized something strange with the Disk Management (Attached an image) There are these partitions which is stated 100% free, (so assuming there is nothing in there?) and taking total space of almost 900mb between the two. Since I have only 128gb C: Drive I wanted to see if I really need these partitions?
One of them says EFI System Partition, The other says Recovery Partition.

Why is that I have 2 instead of 1 partition like that? Can someone please explain if any of you know whats going on? I was going to 'X' in disk management and delete them but I wanted to read your opinions first,
Ps. Dont mind the Seagate External Drive also pictured as Partition, thats just my external drive for system restore image files etc.

Please see the image
Thank you,

 

[Ironsounds]

Hello... the first one is the OS hidden partition... and the last one is HP's recovery partition... your Drive is OEM again.

 

[Shaun o]

I will try to explain it for you in the best way you can understand if your not tech savvy.

You have one physical drive of a total capacity of 4Tb inside your laptop.

When you first install windows on a hard drive it creates two partitions.
The 118 GB drive of Windows as the C: drive is where windows operating system is installed to as it is the boot drive for the loading of the windows operating system.
The 260 MB partition you see named Healthy EFi system partition is where all of the information and setup is contained for loading windows os from the boot partition, instructions on what to do is the most easy way of explaining it.

The 682 MB recovery partition is where once HP has installed windows on the hard drive and all of the drivers required to run the hardware contained in the laptop and any programs HP pre installed such as Microsoft office, any antivirus software, or any other software.

It contains a snapshot or image of the windows install plus the drivers or any other programs that were installed.
So if the windows install of the OS on drive C: becomes damaged it can be fully repaired in one simple step back to a functioning order, just like the first day you turned the laptop on and where asked to create a user account for windows OS to login into it and save your personal preferences, documents, pictures ect under your chosen user name.

The 3725,90 GB space of Disk 1 as drive D: And healthy primary partition you see.
Is data drive.

Where you can store all of your files, pictures, videos, or any programs you use and wish to add to run under the windows operating system. For extra data or storage space where you would install programs you needed for your self use also.

Basically it`s been done right, and how it should be setup for a pre configured system or a laptop.
Bought from a vendor or Brand maker of a set laptop system you buy arda21.

You do not need to alter or change the configuration, it is how it should be setup.

The only drive or partition you should be concerned with is C: and D:

Any games, or application you run regularly. will be installed to the C: drive or the D: drive for your own personal use arda21.

 

[arda21]

Thanks Shaun. so I should just leave those partitions alone, even though they seem to be empty? They say as you can see from the image 100% Free, so I was thinking why do I need to have those recovery and EFI Partitions hanging empty spaced if there is nothing in them ?

 

[Colif]

Its also obvious you did an upgrade as win 10 clean install creates 4 partitions:

Windows Setup will automatically create the 4 partitions below on the drive, and install Windows 10 on the primary partition.
Partition 1 - Recovery
Partition 2 - System - The EFI System partition that contains the NTLDR, HAL, Boot.txt, and other files that are needed to boot the system, such as drivers.
Partition 3 - MSR - The Microsoft Reserved (MSR) partition that reserves space on each disk drive for subsequent use by operating system software.
Partition 4 - Primary - Where Windows is to be installed to.

though in some cases you can convince win 10 tro install it all to one partition.

The new Win 10 update may also produce a new 450mb recovery partition as well.

 

[arda21]

This laptop came with windows 10 pre installed, so it was never a manual update. So I am not sure why it has so many partitions?

 

[Colif]

It must be the way your laptop maker installs win 10. You need an EFI partition so win 10 will boot, and recovery probably includes drivers to assist in a factory reset. The only missing partition is the MSR and its likely to be merged into your primary partition.

As I said, the 4 windows creates by default aren't set in stone, I somehow managed to have 1 partition for all the functions as I was confused when I installed win 10, had no idea what GPT was and forced win 10 to use 1 partition. Since the anniversary update it has created a 450mb recovery partition.

 

[arda21]

everything is so confusing, I think they are all watching us inside of the partitions of our computers