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After installing the Windows 10 April 2018 Update the OS started to warn me about low disk space on Disk M:. This partition (I have assigned a letter to it because I am curious) is where (I think) the recovery files of Win10 are kept.

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Of course this logical disk has been created from the previous installations of Win10 and now I am afraid that a future update will fail if more space is required to host a recovery copy.

I would ask the community about which are my options here:

  • Forget it because the updates are smart enough to fix the problem?

  • Do we have some tools that could help me resize in a non destructive way the partition sizes?

  • Can I dig into this Recovery folder and cut away some excess and free more space?
Steve
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  • Generally you should ignore recovery partitions and any space warnings related to them. Windows isn't smart enough to disable disk space warnings for them apparently. – Tim May 01 '18 at 07:54
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    Just remove the drive letter for it – Mokubai May 01 '18 at 08:36
  • I think Windows is warning about disk space because you assigned it a drive letter. The partition is meant for windows internal book keeping and the size is also managed by the OS – Ganesh R. May 01 '18 at 09:14
  • @Steve I've converted my comments to an answer – Mokubai May 01 '18 at 09:25
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    Possible duplicate of [Windows 10 update created a recovery partition - How to hide that partition?](https://superuser.com/questions/1313742/windows-10-update-created-a-recovery-partition-how-to-hide-that-partition) – Ramhound May 04 '18 at 11:30

2 Answers2

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Removing the assigned drive letter will stop these warnings.

They are only appearing because you gave the drive a letter and you really don't need to care what is on a 500MB partition on a 1TB disk.

In the same way you added a drive letter to it you can remove the drive letter. Just right click the drive in the disk management console, and in the "assign drive letter" dialog you simply remove the letter assigned to it. You don't need to care about what's on that drive, you are giving (some of the crappiest) malware access to critical system recovery files and quite frankly seeing that drive is a waste of a perfectly good drive letter.

Chances are that the data on that partition is minor, only used when doing a system restore and given the size of it is not even a full system image. It is probably just a couple of drivers that Windows will ignore as a latest copy will have newer versions.

The data on it probably "increased" because you gave it a drive letter and during installation of something Windows created a restore point and used the space.

You don't need to know what is on that disk, Windows probably will never use it again, and it's too small to care about recovering.

Mokubai
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    I have followed your advice and removed the disk letter to that partition. The only problem was the Disk Management tool not allowing me to do anything on that drive but remove everything. I have followed the _diskpart_ route as explained here https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/office/en-US/1ba097f6-8a0b-43d8-a826-928458c4ba15/change-drive-letter-and-paths-greyed-out-cant-assign-drive-letter?forum=w7itprohardware – Steve May 01 '18 at 09:35
  • And I can confirm that no more warnings are displayed by the OS – Steve May 01 '18 at 18:40
  • I used diskpart as well. This answer lead me to remove the disk's letter, but I couldn't do it with the disk management tool. The link @Steve gave lead me to diskpart, but I had to find the right command: https://www.howtogeek.com/197296/how-to-use-the-diskpart-utility-to-assign-and-remove-drive-letters/ – dsnunez Jun 28 '18 at 01:01
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Removing a drive letter or just deleting something called the "Recovery Partition" does not seem like the reasonable answer. When you install Windows 10 as a fresh install on a clean or formatted hard drive, it creates four partitions. One of those is a Recovery Partition, and it is necessary.
What if you DO need to work from the recovery environment?
What if Microsoft issues a fix?
If the partition is hidden, renamed, deleted or otherwise, then how is the patch going to be able to be applied?
I have used diskpart but to no avail. to actually see what has been placed onto this partition.

mic84
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WickedGirl
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  • Welcome to superuser: The question has an accepted answer, your comments do not answer that question. Superuser is not a "Chat site" it is only a Q and A site. If you have a new question please ask it. Please take a couple of minutes and read:- http://superuser.com/help .Answering: http://superuser.com/help/how-to-answer, again welcome to superuser.Thankyou – mic84 May 02 '18 at 04:30