Delete recovery d: on hp all-in-one
On my old pc I had programs on C: and data on D: (old school, I guess). Some programs (e.g. MAGIX) still try to access data (photos e.g.) on D:. To change this would be very tedious, to say the least.
Now for some stupid reason hp assigned the "Recovery" partition to D: (of all the available letters!)
My question: Can I delete the contents of that D: partition? I make a daily backup of C: with True Image and have a bootable USB stick for recovery
Agree with Steve. Make the recovery partition R or something. Then you can reassign the other one as D. Reboot and all should be well again.
Thank you very much for the extremely prompt replies.
I was also thinking of changing the partition letter of the Recovery, shrink C: and assign D: to the freed space on the hdd.
My worry is that the recovery path is hard-wired to D:. You think I should maybe get an answer from hp whether changing the recovery partition letter poses any problem?
Just looked at changing letter (Windows 10 Disk Management, right click on drive). Unlike all other partitions, right click on Recovery (D:) only produces a "help" link. It seems I cannot change that letter.
Try using MiniTool Partition Wizard which should let you either change the letter or else remove the letter or hide the partition.
Ditto to Steve again. Actually surprised the recovery partition had a mounted volume letter anyway. Normally, it is an unassigned volume so the user doesn't have regular access to it where they can accidentally make changes to it. Minitool will let you make the changes... But please take a backup first, just to be on the safe side when modifying partitions.
Thanks. As I said I'm a sort of reluctant to change the letter.
I send a screenshot of the Disk Management tab
Your screen image shows that you have 2 Recovery partitions of different sizes.
Windows Recovery partition of 980MB with no assigned drive letter.
HP Factory Recovery partition of 13.5GB assigned as drive D:
The second partition really does not need to have drive D: or any drive letter unless you are planning to reset your computer to how it was originally setup by HP on shipment. If your new computer came with a different version of Windows than you are using on it now, then it is unlikely you would want to downgrade it.
My own approach here would be to modify the volume name from 'RECOVERY' to be 'RECOVERY-D' so that you have a reminder of what letter it had, then use MiniTool PW to set the partition as being hidden with no assigned drive letter.
I bought a new HP Omen laptop last month and this doesn't have any factory recovery partition at all, relying on the ability to re-install Windows 10 using the tools provided in the OS.
If you have windows 10. You don't need a factory recovery partition anymore. Just make a dvd or USB drive from the windows 10 media creator tool. Windows 10 will automatically license after a fresh install so long as you install the same version again (home or pro).
The unassigned partition is the windows recovery partition. Also not need d if you have the DVD or USB drive created, but is a default partition for all major windows 10 uprades or installs. Nice to have it local, but not necessary with a handy USB or dvd.
Thanks for the discussion.
So what I am going to do: I'll cut contents of D: and paste it (temporarily) into C:. This gives me enough space in D: to load my old Magix programs and using D: for pics and music. When I'm done (running Magix in archive mode to put everything into C:), I can put the Recovery data back into D:, although this doesn't seem to be necessary as I don't intend to go back to factory settings.
Still wondering what possessed the hp people to use D:
Alternatively, make a disk & partition backup of just the D: Recovery partition, then delete the contents of D:. When done with your Magix stuff, you can restore the D: partition if you feel there is ever any need to do so.
Tried what I said I was gonna do. Doesn't work.
First i tried to create a folder RECOVERY in C:. But I was informed that a folder with that name already existed in C:.
But even with " view hidden items" no folder with that name showed up (others like "hp" did). So there must be a totally secret recovery folder on C:
I then created a Recovery_D and tried to copy RECOVERY D: into it. After 99 % the process stopped and I was told that not allowed to that (although I'm logged as administrator.)
For the time being I'm not going to try to delete or format D: . Probably doesn't work anyway.
Going nuts. Will try MiniTool PW later and follow Steve's suggestion. There is really no urgency.
As I cannot copy the contents of D: to a folder in C:, can Trueb Image back it up and restore it?
Yes. But please store the backup of D: on an external drive, not on your C: drive.
ATI uses the Microsoft VSS snapshot feature to capture locked data when making the backup so will have no issues with making a backup of the HP factory recovery partition. Recovery is also straight forward.
Thanks. No worries, all backups are on an external hdd. Will try it tomorrow.
Just saw that my backup (see attachment) is always on C: and D:.
When I mount the backup file, I can see all partitions (attachment}. Very convenient.
Next I'll check, whether I can delete (format??) D:
