During a clean installation of Windows 10 when I'm creating partitions, the installer automatically wants to create a 100 MB system partition in addition to the main partition. The harddrive is 500 GB. On another system with 750 GB harddrive the installer wants to create a 500 MB system partition. What is up with that? Why the difference in sizes? Can I delete them now that Windows is installed?
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Windows 10 steals a partition and won't let go
- Thread starter pinoy
- Start date
It has been highly recommended to have a separate system partition for the bootloader and bitlocker support since Windows Vista. Usually a bootable small installation of Windows PE also lives in that installation to provide a recovery environment for things like startup repair (and can be used to get to a command prompt for troubleshooting when things really go wrong and the system is otherwise unbootable.)
I believe Vista created a system partition around 100-150MB in size, but starting with Windows 7 Microsoft starting recommending a system partition size of at least 300 MB to ensure that bitlocker could be successfully enabled on UEFI systems.
Is it possible that the system with the 100 MB partition is doing MBR boot while the system with the 500 MB partition is doing UEFI boot? That would explain the difference in sizes.
Regardless, I would advise against attempting to delete the partitions. It is possible to get Windows to install without a system partition but the easiest way to do that is to create the partition structure manually and tell Windows to install to a particular partition that you have already created. However, in doing so you will loose Bitlocker support and the ability to use some of the recovery and repair features.
Even if you were able to successfully move the files from the system partition to your main partition you probably wouldn't gain much by deleting it because the system partition is usually located at or near the beginning of the drive. You would be left with a 100-500 MB "hole" that you wouldn't be able to do much with.
Even on a smaller SSD, 500 MB is a relatively small amount of space. I usually just consider the space "part of the Windows installation" and don't worry about it. The partition is hidden by default so you hardly notice it is there unless you go looking for it.
I believe Vista created a system partition around 100-150MB in size, but starting with Windows 7 Microsoft starting recommending a system partition size of at least 300 MB to ensure that bitlocker could be successfully enabled on UEFI systems.
Is it possible that the system with the 100 MB partition is doing MBR boot while the system with the 500 MB partition is doing UEFI boot? That would explain the difference in sizes.
Regardless, I would advise against attempting to delete the partitions. It is possible to get Windows to install without a system partition but the easiest way to do that is to create the partition structure manually and tell Windows to install to a particular partition that you have already created. However, in doing so you will loose Bitlocker support and the ability to use some of the recovery and repair features.
Even if you were able to successfully move the files from the system partition to your main partition you probably wouldn't gain much by deleting it because the system partition is usually located at or near the beginning of the drive. You would be left with a 100-500 MB "hole" that you wouldn't be able to do much with.
Even on a smaller SSD, 500 MB is a relatively small amount of space. I usually just consider the space "part of the Windows installation" and don't worry about it. The partition is hidden by default so you hardly notice it is there unless you go looking for it.
YeuEmMaiMai
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uhm welcome to Vista
faugusztin
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That is the EFI partition and/or recovery tools. No, you should not delete those.
Lunas
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It could be worse lenovo has their drives in like 7 partitions and it is hellish to get those back... i still can't get my slave drive to give up the 2 1 gig partitions i did manage to take back the 12 gig recovery and the 3 normally made in 8 and don't remember the size of the other one it had made...
honestly why it does not come with a flash drive or cdrom any more is idiotic. I would love if there was like an 8-16 gig recovery storage on the mobo then the hdd and ram, wifi card with access for cleaning the fan is the extra access I want. With built in storage they could write a special program to update it so you could restore a fully up to date fresh install.
honestly why it does not come with a flash drive or cdrom any more is idiotic. I would love if there was like an 8-16 gig recovery storage on the mobo then the hdd and ram, wifi card with access for cleaning the fan is the extra access I want. With built in storage they could write a special program to update it so you could restore a fully up to date fresh install.
Armenius
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It's only 0.02% of your drive's capacity... I'd be more concerned about the default 15% Windows uses for VSS by default.
This partition is for the BitLocker drive encryption.
http://www.howtogeek.com/192772/what-is-the-system-reserved-partition-and-can-you-delete-it/
http://www.howtogeek.com/192772/what-is-the-system-reserved-partition-and-can-you-delete-it/
One is what windows uses to actually boot from and the other is used for if you choose to enable bootlocker later, and for various files that are needed in 8 or 10 to perform a system refresh/reinstall of windows. They partitions are also necessary to upgrade to future versions of windows. It's normal. leave them alone.
If you really don't want that "extra" partition there, you can make Windows not make it by making one big partition before installing Windows.
You will also need to make sure that the only fixed drive hooked up is the one you are installing Windows to.
You will also need to make sure that the only fixed drive hooked up is the one you are installing Windows to.
But again, realize if you do what cyclone3d said, you will break features, and cause issues later when you upgrade. I've already dealt with multiple people who've cleared the partitions who can't upgrade to 10 or were stuck when a repair install failed.