Question Partition confusion while using BU Imager - Unknown Partition

[Muckster]

Just to be clear, a normal Windows installation consists of a minimum of 4 partitions which must be in a specific order. If you want to divide your data partition into multiple partitions you may create those but the basic 4 must always be there in the specific order. I suspect that any partition you don't see in Windows disk management is omitted for your protection since they don't want you messing with it and making your disk unbootable. The first partition would be the 100MB EFI System Partition. The second would be the 16MB partition which is not normally shown in Disk Management. The third is the data partition, which you may divide into multiple partitions. And the last partition is the Recovery Partition which must always be at the end of the disk.

Given the amount of time we've wasted on this I personally prefer to just pay Macrium's fee and get a program I know will definitely work.

Yes, I've been learning about this lately, especially with windows 11 which I'm not familiar with but will be soon on my new build.

So, I'm about to do a new Windows 11 install on a fresh unformatted SSD. I guess best practice would be to just let Windows format the whole drive and setup the extra partitions wherever it wants? Then, step two, use Disk Managment to shrink drives and create your own custom partitions as desired? Or, is it better to create your non-OS parititions at the beginning before you even install windows but just after you create the partition for the OS.

Again, I'm asking noob questions because I haven't installed Win 11 yet. As you say, it installs the recovery partition AFTER the OS partition. So if I say.. designate windows to be installed on a 125 GB partition, the very next partition is the Recovery parition created by Windows? That means it leaves space after that point that's unformated for me to do as I wish with? That's so bad in that case so long as I don't try to shrink the OS partition and keep all my custom partitions to the right of the Recovery.

 

[Muckster]

Exactly.

Some things are worth paying for.
Things that really work, and you really use.

Macrium Reflect is one of those.

I thought you stopped paying for it which is why it's no longer updating.

 

[USAFRet]

I thought you stopped paying for it which is why it's no longer updating.

No.

On my main system, it was a 1 time, lifetime payment. At the time, v5 or 6, it was maybe $60.
NOT a monthly or yearly payment.
It still works just fine, just that it no longer gets any feature updates. But I did upgrade the version just yesterday....

Just like the current one is. You can get a 1 time, lifetime license. $80. No subscription needed.


EDIT: I just looked through my email...
Purchased 2 Feb 2017, v6. So...a 1 time payment, 7 years ago today.
$0 upgrade to v8 Dec 2021.

 

[Muckster]

Yes, I've been learning about this lately, especially with windows 11 which I'm not familiar with but will be soon on my new build.

So, I'm about to do a new Windows 11 install on a fresh unformatted SSD. I guess best practice would be to just let Windows format the whole drive and setup the extra partitions wherever it wants? Then, step two, use Disk Managment to shrink drives and create your own custom partitions as desired? Or, is it better to create your non-OS parititions at the beginning before you even install windows but just after you create the partition for the OS.

Again, I'm asking noob questions because I haven't installed Win 11 yet. As you say, it installs the recovery partition AFTER the OS partition. So if I say.. designate windows to be installed on a 125 GB partition, the very next partition is the Recovery parition created by Windows? That means it leaves space after that point that's unformated for me to do as I wish with? That's so bad in that case so long as I don't try to shrink the OS partition and keep all my custom partitions to the right of the Recovery.

Also, I actually think that MRS partition (usually 16MB) may be something windows creates not only for the OS partition but for every partition you custom create. As I explained above, it was a mystery to me why I had a hidden 128MB drive but it made sense when I multiplied 16mb x 8 partitions to get 128mb.

Edit: I'm now pretty sure I had this wrong. Just a coincidence that I had 8 partitions x 16mb added up to the 128mb I was seeing. I'm not at all sure that custom created partitions even use MSR space.

All this said, for someone like me, I only create full non-automated images of my OS and I don't do it sector by sector. I do it manually. So for me, I can just pick those four partitions and back them up each time. Not so hard to figure out. Most of my confusion has been just figuring out WHAT to backup. Right now, for my needs, I think there are a lot of free Backup Imagers that will work fine for me. Right now I'm looking at Hasleo for my Win 11 goto.

 

[Muckster]

No.

On my main system, it was a 1 time, lifetime payment. At the time, v5 or 6, it was maybe $60.
NOT a monthly or yearly payment.
It still works just fine, just that it no longer gets any feature updates. But I did upgrade the version just yesterday....

Just like the current one is. You can get a 1 time, lifetime license. $80. No subscription needed.

That sounds like a good solution for you. I bought a full "lifetime" version of True Image years ago and they even let me upgrade it once for free. But as newer versions of windows came out, the software required more $ to upgrade and now, as mentioned before, it doesn't even officially support Windows 11. And also, as I mentioned, it got slower and slower over time.

 

[Lafong]

Yes, I've been learning about this lately, especially with windows 11 which I'm not familiar with but will be soon on my new build.

So, I'm about to do a new Windows 11 install on a fresh unformatted SSD. I guess best practice would be to just let Windows format the whole drive and setup the extra partitions wherever it wants? Then, step two, use Disk Managment to shrink drives and create your own custom partitions as desired? Or, is it better to create your non-OS parititions at the beginning before you even install windows but just after you create the partition for the OS.

Again, I'm asking noob questions because I haven't installed Win 11 yet. As you say, it installs the recovery partition AFTER the OS partition. So if I say.. designate windows to be installed on a 125 GB partition, the very next partition is the Recovery parition created by Windows? That means it leaves space after that point that's unformated for me to do as I wish with? That's so bad in that case so long as I don't try to shrink the OS partition and keep all my custom partitions to the right of the Recovery.

Make the USB Win 11 installer via Microsoft's Media Creation Tool.

Boot from it.

Follow the prompts and let it have its way with your store-fresh SSD....making whatever partitions of whatever sizes as the installer sees fit.

I would NOT "designate" anything beforehand. I'd go with the bare drive, right out of the box.

Evaluate what the installer did in Windows Disk Management after the installer finishes.

You can alter partitions or make new partitions as you see fit at that time....probably from Windows Disk Management, but possibly with a third party tool.

Naturally, you're entitled to gild the lily if you cannot resist that impulse.

 

[dwd999]

So, I'm about to do a new Windows 11 install on a fresh unformatted SSD. I guess best practice would be to just let Windows format the whole drive and setup the extra partitions wherever it wants? Then, step two, use Disk Management to shrink drives and create your own custom partitions as desired?

The main thing is to make sure your new ssd has a GPT partition header. Then let the windows installer create the 4 partitions it needs. But why create additional partitions after that? If you want to separate some data from your OS it would be better to use 2 or more ssds rather than messing with the partitions on the OS drive. This way you can just backup image the whole OS drive without worrying about the stuff that's on the later drivers.

 

[Muckster]

Make the USB Win 11 installer via Microsoft's Media Creation Tool.

Boot from it.

Follow the prompts and let it have its way with your store-fresh SSD....making whatever partitions of whatever sizes as the installer sees fit.

I would NOT "designate" anything beforehand. I'd go with the bare drive, right out of the box.

Evaluate what the installer did in Windows Disk Management after the installer finishes.

You can alter partitions or make new partitions as you see fit at that time....probably from Windows Disk Management, but possibly with a third party tool.

Naturally, you're entitled to gild the lily if you cannot resist that impulse.

So, by this method, Windows will format and fill the whole drive (2TB in my case). Then I can go back and use Disk Management to shrink the OS partition down to a reasonable size..... I was thinking 125GB as the most. Then I'll have space to make my partitions as I choose. This is what I understand you to be describing.

Here's my concern. It's my understanding that Windows 11 will created the Recovery partition AFTER the OS. If it's installed to the entire SSD, then the Recovery Partition will not only be after the OS, but at the very end. When I shrink the drive won't I be putting my custom partitions between the OS partition and the Recovery Partition at the end of the drive? Does that bother Windows?

I guess what I'm really asking is that while I know the Recovery Partition comes AFTER the OS, does it want to also be adjacent to the OS or just anytime time after?

The other Method would be for me to USB Boot Windows as you describe, and then at the very beginning of the install process I could create a 125 GB partition to install to. In the past when I've done this with windows 10, it knew to put the EFI and Recovery and, I assume, the MSR in front of the OS before going on to create the OS parition even though all I told it to do was create the 125GB partition. By this method I could still go on later to use Disk Management to create my own custom partitions from the unformatted remainder of the drive. No shrinking of the OS partition necessary, but more importantly, in the case of Windows 11, the Recovery Partition wouldn't just come after the OS partition, but it would also be adjacent to it.

Of course if it doesn't need to be adjacent to it, then it probably doesn't matter unless there some kind of faster access rate when it's next to the OS. But with this method, I could never expand the OS partition because it would overlap the Recovery, and if I shrank it, it would leave a gap between itself and the Recovery.

I was actually thinking of doing the second method if having the Recovery adjacent to the OS partition was important.

 

[Muckster]

The main thing is to make sure your new ssd has a GPT partition header. Then let the windows installer create the 4 partitions it needs. But why create additional partitions after that? If you want to separate some data from your OS it would be better to use 2 or more ssds rather than messing with the partitions on the OS drive. This way you can just backup image the whole OS drive without worrying about the stuff that's on the later drivers.

I think all the GPT stuff is setup automatically these days when installing Win 11 fresh to a new SSD, right? Especialy if you are formatting the whole drive the way you say, right?

No, I certainly don't want a 2TB single partition just to hold windows. I want to have a separate much smaller partition just for windows to that, when things go wrong or just get too bloated, I can restore the OS parititon with an imager (along with the other 3). I just make a backup image of the OS partition from time to time usually after a big windows update or after installing software/apps that I know I want to use "permently," so to speak. All my custom data I keep on other paritions so it's not affected by restoring the OS partition. I back those up sometimes to on a flash drive. In the past I've just created an partion on a separate SSD to restore to the SSD that holds the OS, but this time around I'll probably just keep a back up image of the OS on a flash drive.

It's not for everyone but that's how I do it. I do images not so much to protect my data but to give me a way to quickly restore to a clean image of the OS from time to time.

 

[Lafong]

On my Windows 10 right now:

Windows Disk Management shows 4 partitions on my boot drive.

The entire drive is 500 GB.

left to right

Recovery, EFI, C, and another Recovery. The partitions other than C total 1096 MB.

At this moment, the 3 small partitions all show as 100 percent free space. I don't worry about that. Windows is as Windows does.

I personally have made NONE of them manually.

I have manually resized NONE of them.

Repeat: made or resized NONE OF THEM.

Windows did it all.

On rare occasions, I have seen 5 partitions.

Windows will occasionally resize the Recovery partitions as it sees fit.

I don't worry about it AT ALL.

What you see in Windows Disk Management is an abstraction. Take it literally at your own risk.

Diskpart shows 5 partitions. The additional one being "reserved", size 16 mb.

 

[USAFRet]

The "Recovery Partition" does not need to exist at all.

This is my current C drive

The 593MB partition to the right is the Recovery Partition.

That could be deleted completely, with no adverse affects.
On the next major Win 11 Update, it would be recreated.

 

[Muckster]

On my Windows 10 right now:

Windows Disk Management shows 4 partitions on my boot drive.

The entire drive is 500 GB.

left to right

Recovery, EFI, C, and another Recovery. The partitions other than C total 1096 MB.

At this moment, the 3 small partitions all show as 100 percent free space. I don't worry about that. Windows is as Windows does.

I personally have made NONE of them manually.

I have manually resized NONE of them.

Repeat: made or resized NONE OF THEM.

Windows did it all.

On rare occasions, I have seen 5 partitions.

Windows will occasionally resize the Recovery partitions as it sees fit.

I don't worry about it AT ALL.

What you see in Windows Disk Management is an abstraction. Take it literally at your own risk.

Diskpart shows 5 partitions. The additional one being "reserved", size 16 mb.

Thanks for hanging around. I've been researching this a bit so I have a little better standing since my last post.

I never suggested anyone should change any of the Windows created partitions (Recovery, EFI, MSR). You're right to leave them alone.

It's odd you have a second Recovery Partition. I'm not sure what that's about.

I was never able to see the MSR partition in Disk Management. You are right to say the diskpart will show you everything, including hidden partitions like MSR.

Just an FYI for you: The way it seems to work, at least with windows 11, is that the OS partition needs to be next to the Recovery Partition. Windows, during updates or whatever, will sometimes decide to resize (expand) the Recovery partition. It does this by shrinking the OS partition which is why it's probably best practice to keep the Recovery partion just to the right of the OS partition and then, if you choose, add custom partions to the right of all that.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/a...ecovery-partition-is-typically-created-at-the

My only "worry" about the additonal partitions Windows makes has to do with:

1) Knowing what I need to backup when creating an image (spoiler, all of them in addition the OS partition)

and

2) Knowing where to put my own custom partitions such that they don't interfere with the sometimes expanding Recovery Partition. (spoiler, put custom partitions to the right of OS and Recovery Partition... and make sure you make the OS partition bigger than you think you'll need to leave room for Recovery partition to expand if it needs to).

The above reflects my best understanding of the situation and I'm eager to be corrected if I have it wrong.