Question Converted C: Drive from MBR to GPT disk and now I have a new System Reserved partition --- can I safely remove it ?

[gphoenix51]

Hello, I recently decided to bite the bullet and try to get my PC ready for Windows 11. I ran PC Health Check and it said I needed to enable Secure Boot and TPM 2.0. Found out I needed to convert my Windows OS Drive, C:, from MBR to GPT. I figured out how to do that, and while I was rebooting, foolishly decided to fix the TMP 2.0 thing at the same time instead of just doing one thing at a time. After a minor heart attack because my boot menu couldn't find my OS hard drive and having to rearrange my boot order so one of the two Windows Boot Managers was at the top of the boot order, I got Windows to boot up again.

I opened File Explorer, looking for something when I noticed a new drive that wasn't there before. When I checked Disk Manager, it is apparently a new partition of my C: drive, which is now a System Reserved Drive with it's own drive letter. In File Explorer, it only has one thing visible, a MARKER file called $WINRE_BACKUP_PARTITION.MARKER

Is this thing safe to remove? Are the other 2 Healthy (EFI System Partition) on C and E safe to remove or are they needed? What about the Recovery Partition that's also on my C: drive?

Please Help!

https://imgur.com/a/bRJEl5W

 

[USAFRet]

That partition was always there on Disk 0.
Now, it just has a drive letter so you see it in File Explorer.

Simply remove the I drive letter, and all is well.

 

[gphoenix51]

That worked, thank you. Are the other partitions ok to leave alone?

 

[USAFRet]

That worked, thank you. Are the other partitions ok to leave alone?

Yes, just leave them.

 

[gphoenix51]

Ok, thank you.

 

[SkyNetRising]

it is apparently a new partition of my C: drive, which is now a System Reserved Drive with it's own drive letter.Is this thing safe to remove?

That is the old bootloader. After MBR/GPT conversion it has no use any more and can be deleted, if necessary.

Are the other 2 Healthy (EFI System Partition) on C and E safe to remove or are they needed?

EFI System partition is the new bootloader. It is required for booting into windows.
Though - you should have only one of those (not two).
First you should try to boot into windows with only drive containing partition C: connected.
If that boots fine, then you can delete EFI system partition from 5TB drive.

What about the Recovery Partition that's also on my C: drive?

Recovery partition houses recovery environment. That can be deleted too, if necessary.

 

[hotaru.hino]

I recommend against deleting the Recovery Environment, because it's useful (https://www.drware.com/windows-recovery-environment-explained/)

Not to mention given the where it is in the drive, you can't really do much with the empty space it leaves behind.

 

[Diceman_2037]

That is the old bootloader. After MBR/GPT conversion it has no use any more and can be deleted, if necessary.

No it cannot! this Partition is still used on a converted disk.