Windows Can I safely format OEM made recovery partition?

red dragon

red dragon

Justiceforall
Level I
Long story short, LG has taken more than 10GB to make a recovery partition in their Gram laptop which comes with Windows10 home edition.
I didn't know it comes with so much bloat, and about the update circus involving Wndows 10. The organization I work for has a slimmed down version installed in all their thousands of system (Enterprise LTSC) and a IT friend of mine in India was kind enough to install and activated it on my laptop as I use it for official purpose also.
Now I have 2 recovery partitions (one small one created by Windows and a pretty large one from LG)
Since the computer now running a different version of Windows, can I remove the LG partition?
 
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Depends on where that partition is situated. If it's in the front next to the EFI partition, then every partition after that will have to be moved in front. This will take 3-4 hours depending on the size of the hard drive and how much data is present. There is a possibility that data would be lost if there is power failure or something else.

I have deleted the EFI and OS partition of 30GB and had to move the entire data partition to the front of the drive on a 1TB hdd. Took like 5-6 hours since the hdd was full. This was in Ubuntu though.
 
red dragon said:
Yes, it's 512GB, space is not an issue, but if I want/need to recover, can 2 recovery partitions cause some conflicts?
Click to expand...
Should not be a problem to have two partitions but the recovery software needs to be pointed to the right place.

This will add extra complications. It will have to be tested to see whether it works or not.

The reason i think its best to keep the original or a back up of it is when you do sell the laptop in the future you can factory reset it as you got it.

If you need to remove it then its best to keep a copy and ensure that you can re-install is back if necessary.

unless you don't mind passing it on with the present configuration and its factory reset.
 
Thanks man. You have a very valid point. I have never sold any laptops before, just gave away. But this is a very good point.
 
If your PC/laptop has an OEM partition, it means you are using a device from HP, Dell or Lenovo.
Alternatively, an OEM partition is called the factory default recovery section. You can use it in case of any system failure in the computer without using the OS installation disk. If you have little experience in reinstalling the OS, an OEM partition can be a great solution for you. Until your computer has failed; then your OEM partition is “useless”.
 
^^Nope, it is not from HP/Dell or Lenovo. Yes, it`s named something like that.I installed a different version of OS and have no intention of going back to Winows 10 Home/Pro. I know how to use recovery partition in Mac, but the procedure should be similar with Windows. The problem is I have 2 recovery partitions and have decided not to mess with my present installation. Windows has given me enough headache already and finally it is stable and usable.
 
If you have no intention to use the factory version of Windows, then you can safely format the recovery partition and take that storage into use.

I have done that for old laptops of my cousins which had older versions of Windows installed on it, and we had no intention of going back to them. So, I formatted the whole hard drive including the recovery partition, and used all that space to partition the drive to my preference and installed new version of Windows. No problems.
 
Thanks Anupam. Will do if/when space becomes an issue.Have made it usable after lot of trial and errors ( mostly with sound drivers for low latency for the audio interface) since I am away from my main computer and forgot pretty much everything about Windows.
 
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