Unexpected Partitions (SR_AED, SR_IMAGE) Created After Trying Ubuntu 22 Live USB on HP Zbook G11

[abcd123489337]

Hello everyone,

I'm encountering a very strange and unexpected behavior on my new HP Zbook G11 laptop running Windows 11.

Here's what happened:

1. I wanted to test Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, so I created a bootable USB drive.

2. I booted my laptop from the USB and selected the "Try Ubuntu" option (I explicitly did not select "Install Ubuntu").

3. After exploring the live Ubuntu environment for a bit, I shut down the laptop and removed the USB drive.

4. Upon booting back into Windows 11, I immediately noticed my available disk space was significantly reduced.

5. Checking Disk Management, I found two new, unexpected primary partitions:

   • SR_AED (approx. 1 GB)

   • SR_IMAGE (approx. 31 GB)

This means that simply booting from a "Try Ubuntu" live USB seems to have created these two partitions, totaling about 32 GB, on my internal 512 GB SSD. I did not initiate any installation process whatsoever.

My questions for the community are:

• Is this a known behavior of Ubuntu 22.04's "Try" mode, especially on newer HP Zbook models or Windows 11 systems?

• Has anyone else experienced similar spontaneous partition creation after only using the "Try Ubuntu" live environment?

• Is it possible that the "Try Ubuntu" environment triggers some sort of Windows or HP recovery partition creation/modification on specific hardware, even without an installation being initiated?

I'm looking to understand if this is an isolated incident or a documented interaction between the Ubuntu live environment and certain system configurations. I've since removed the 31GB partition using diskpart (the 1GB SR_AED is still present as it appeared alongside it), but I'm quite puzzled by its creation in the first place.

Any insights or similar experiences would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance.