Windows 7 Recovery Partition vs. System Partition

[hlofgren_007]

I have an Asus 1810TZwith a 160 GB HDD running Win7 Home 64.

Disk Manager shows 3 partitions on the HDD:
* The 100 MB System Partition (some 72% free)
* A 12 GB Recovery Partition with 100% free
* A 137 GB C: drive with 80% free

(For the record, I have used Acer's eRecovery program to burn recovery DVDs for system and drivers).

I have been under the impression that the (12 GB) recovery partition contains the information the user needs to burn recovery DVDs but this does not appear to be the case as my partition is 100% free.

If there's nothing in this partition, what is it's purpose?
Is this some space Win 7 creates and reserves for the purpose of creating restore points?
If I don't intend to enable the Win7 restore function, can I delete this partition and free up the 12 GB for usage?

(I'm going to install Ubuntu for dual doot and would like to slim Win 7 and it's HDD usage as much as possible).

Grateful for any explaination the community can give.

Cheers

H.

 

[Emerald]

The reason the recovery partition is empty is that you have created burned recovery DVDs after which the files have been deleted from the 12GB drive.

You can use it to install Ubantu and share the Windows partition to store the data.

However, you could use a partitioning tool to merge the recovery and windows partitions and then slim down your windows partition to about 50GB and create a 100GB for your Linux. This process will take a few hours.

 

[windows7guy]

Hello hlofgren_007,

It depends on the version of Windows 7 that you have. As a good rule of thumb a minimum of 30GB is recommended for Windows 7 *(possibly more for Windows Ultimate).
http://tinyurl.com/obma6q
　
If you want to run Windows 7 on your PC, here's what it requires:
1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver
Some Additioinal information with regard to the "system reserved" Partition in Windows 7 setup:
If you do not want the 'System Reserved' partition to be created and existed, the best way is to stop Windows 7 installation process to create the partition when installing Windows 7.
In Windows 7, the feature (100 MB partition to store WinRE files) is installed on all computers if the OS is installed on hard disk with single partition scheme, or unallocated space (space which not yet been partitioned) on the hard disk drive.
Thus in order to skip or avoid the 100M partition to be automatically created during installation, here’s a few rules to follow when choosing where to install Windows 7 to:
1. Do not install Windows 7 to a hard disk that not yet been partitioned or to unallocated space (When install Windows 7 to unallocated space, no warning pop-up or confirmation is asked, and setup will straight away and directly create partition 200 MB of disk space as special partition without notification).
2. If possible, try to create all the necessary partition(s) and format the partition(s) before attempting to install Windows 7.
3. If you’re installing Windows 7 into a new hard disk, or a blank hard disk with no partition defined yet, or if you must delete all existing partitions to start afresh, chose Drive options (advanced). Delete (if applicable) unwanted partitions. Then, click New to create the single partition or multiple partitions according to your own preference.
When prompted with dialog box saying "To ensure that all Windows features work correctly, Windows might create additional partitions for system files", click on Cancel button. Optionally, to be double confirm, Format the partition before selecting it to install Windows 7
Finally, if you want to do some research; there are also some great articles, instructional videos and such to help with your Windows 7, installation, migration and upgrade decisions located at our Springboard site:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/default.aspx
Thanks again and good luck!
John M.
Microsoft Windows Client Support

 

[hlofgren_007]

Emerald - that's what I suspected. Many thanks for the confirmation.

windows7Guy - very helpful. Thanks for taking the time to write this up.


Best regards,

H.

 

[testmans]

Fine ... Another option to create HTML-based recovery partition. interested have a look

http://pctesti.com/recovery-programlari/recovery-partition-olusturmak/

 

[LeeHamilton]

That partition should have some data in it. On my Acer Aspire M1100 the PQService hidden partition includes tools to recover from a previous backup created by eRecovery, and buried in the RYTOOLS directory are the files to reinstall the MBR boot record option to use ALT-F10 and windows eRecovery restore. (From a command prompt cd \RYTOOLS; mbrwin install rtmbr. This is very useful if you have to change to a new system disk).

 

[runeweb]

Hello hlofgren_007,
If you do not want the 'System Reserved' partition to be created and existed, the best way is to stop Windows 7 installation process to create the partition when installing Windows 7.
In Windows 7, the feature (100 MB partition to store WinRE files) is installed on all computers if the OS is installed on hard disk with single partition scheme, or unallocated space (space which not yet been partitioned) on the hard disk drive.
Thus in order to skip or avoid the 100M partition to be automatically created during installation, here’s a few rules to follow when choosing where to install Windows 7 to:
1. Do not install Windows 7 to a hard disk that not yet been partitioned or to unallocated space (When install Windows 7 to unallocated space, no warning pop-up or confirmation is asked, and setup will straight away and directly create partition 200 MB of disk space as special partition without notification).
2. If possible, try to create all the necessary partition(s) and format the partition(s) before attempting to install Windows 7.
3. If you’re installing Windows 7 into a new hard disk, or a blank hard disk with no partition defined yet, or if you must delete all existing partitions to start afresh, chose Drive options (advanced). Delete (if applicable) unwanted partitions. Then, click New to create the single partition or multiple partitions according to your own preference.
When prompted with dialog box saying "To ensure that all Windows features work correctly, Windows might create additional partitions for system files", click on Cancel button. Optionally, to be double confirm, Format the partition before selecting it to install Windows 7

What if I wish to delete the system reserved partition after the installation of windows?

 

[Jacob123Micheal]

Go through the step-by-step procedure offered by EasyTechy technicians:


1) Insert USB flash drive or Windows XP/7 installation discs, and shut down your system.

Next, restart your computer.

2) Press any key when you are prompted, and continue following the instructions appearing in the pop-ups.

3) Then, when you are navigated to ‘Install Windows’ or ‘System Recovery Options’ page, select preferred language and click Next.

4) If you have used USB flash drive or Windows installation disc, click on ‘Repair your computer’ option.

5) Choose Windows Installation for repairing the system and click Next.

6) Lastly, on System Recovery Options menu, you can click on the tools to open it.