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System Reserved partition in re-used hard drive

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  • Feb 14th, 2021 7:23 pm
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Feb 14th, 2021 9:35 am
JWL [OP]
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Feb 14th, 2021 9:35 am

System Reserved partition in re-used hard drive

Have had a desktop PC in use for a while. Windows 10, 64 bit.
Ran across a 1TB HD on a shelf and decided to put it in the case. It was the primary drive in a previous desktop PC. Everything fired up fine. I formatted the new/re-used HD (full format, not quick format).

On that new HD there is a 100MB "System Reserved" partition with the description in Disk Management "Health (Active Primary Partition)". There is nothing in this partition (even when showing "Hidden items". The remainder of that drive is F: 931.41 GB NTFS - Healthy (Primary Partition)

The original HD in this desktop has the following partitions:
500 MB - Healthy (EFI System Partition)
40 MB - Health (OEM Partition)
750 MB - Healthy (Recovery Partition)
OS (C:) 919.05 GB NTFS - Healthy (Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Primary Partition)
567 MB - Health (Recovery Partition)
10.52 GB - Healthy (Recovery Partition)

Is the System Reserved partition going to cause me any headaches? Anything I should do to get rid of it? If not can I hide it from showing up in File Manager? I don't care about the loss of 100MB of space

Thanks in advance for your help.
Last edited by JWL on Feb 14th, 2021 9:45 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Feb 14th, 2021 9:41 am
rabbit
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Feb 14th, 2021 9:41 am

The 100MB partition is normal for Win10 boot drives.
https://www.howtogeek.com/192772/what-i ... delete-it/

If you've gotten rid of the old desktop, I would repartition the entire drive, either using Windows Disk Manager or a third-party tool, like Minitool Partition Wizard.
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Feb 14th, 2021 9:49 am
JWL [OP]
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Feb 14th, 2021 9:49 am

rabbit wrote: ↑ The 100MB partition is normal for Win10 boot drives.
https://www.howtogeek.com/192772/what-i ... delete-it/

If you've gotten rid of the old desktop, I would repartition the entire drive, either using Windows Disk Manager or a third-party tool, like Minitool Partition Wizard.
Thanks.

So it is a partition held over from when it was part of the old desktop? (yes that desktop is gone).
Feb 14th, 2021 9:55 am
rabbit
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Feb 14th, 2021 9:55 am

Simply "formatting" a drive does not change the partitions, so if that is what you did, then yes, the 500MB partition was there from before. (Sorry, I mistakenly referred to it at "100MB" before.)

That partition is automatically created when you install Windows 10 on a drive with no partitions.

I think you're using that drive as an external drive for storage (not a boot drive), so I would wipe all partitions and create a single one. For data, you don't need any special, hidden partitions like that 500MB one.
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Feb 14th, 2021 3:44 pm
Supahhh
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Feb 14th, 2021 3:44 pm

JWL wrote: ↑ Have had a desktop PC in use for a while. Windows 10, 64 bit.
Ran across a 1TB HD on a shelf and decided to put it in the case. It was the primary drive in a previous desktop PC. Everything fired up fine. I formatted the new/re-used HD (full format, not quick format).

On that new HD there is a 100MB "System Reserved" partition with the description in Disk Management "Health (Active Primary Partition)". There is nothing in this partition (even when showing "Hidden items". The remainder of that drive is F: 931.41 GB NTFS - Healthy (Primary Partition)

The original HD in this desktop has the following partitions:
500 MB - Healthy (EFI System Partition)
40 MB - Health (OEM Partition)
750 MB - Healthy (Recovery Partition)
OS (C:) 919.05 GB NTFS - Healthy (Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Primary Partition)
567 MB - Health (Recovery Partition)
10.52 GB - Healthy (Recovery Partition)

Is the System Reserved partition going to cause me any headaches? Anything I should do to get rid of it? If not can I hide it from showing up in File Manager? I don't care about the loss of 100MB of space

Thanks in advance for your help.
you can use "DiskManagment" to delete it completely. you probably formatted the partition and not the disk. ( you have to delete all the partitions and then create a new one ). The new "System partition" is usually created when Windows installer formats the disk.
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Feb 14th, 2021 4:57 pm
evilYoda
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Nov 15, 2020
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Feb 14th, 2021 4:57 pm

if you reinstall windows 10 on there, it'll remove the 2 small partitions from a previous windows 10 , and create 2 new ones, at the beginning of the drive based on the last versions of windows 10. Deleting it yourself is fine as the previous windows is no longer on the drive.
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Feb 14th, 2021 7:23 pm
robertz
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North Vancouver, BC

Feb 14th, 2021 7:23 pm

If disk management doesn't allow you to delete all the partitions, you can run diskpart from the command line and use the clean option. Just make sure you select the correct drive.
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