Using recovery partition but with repartition system drive

[redcloudz]

Dear support,

My new company gave me HP 348 G3 with 2 drives:

C: system (841GB free/900GB)

😧 recovery (3,28GB free/29,9GB)

Suppose I restructure the C drive into two drive, or technically I use partition software to free 500GB up from C drive to a new drive let's say drive E. Does the recovery partition still work?

Since I believe this single partition will be a potential disaster if I need to total recovery the system will erase the existing data on drive C along with the windows system.

Thanks.

[WAWood · Accepted solution]

@redcloudz

Hello;

Allow me to welcome you to the HP forums!

It will not work in the sense that it would only restore the original OS.  It would basically wipe out any new partition you establish as the first thing that system recovery does is reformat the entire drive, recreating the original partitions.

IF you want a recovery solution after reformatting the drive, then I have an alrernate suggestion.

My suggestion is you consider using a third-party solution known as Macrium Reflect (MR).

I prefer to use third-party recovery solutions for the following reasons:
1) More flexibility and reliabilty -- can make recovery media as often as you like, not restricted to one attempt, which if it fails, then you are stuck.
2) More media options -- can create media in DVD, USB stick, or external drive format
3) Mounting option -- can "mount" the save images as virtual "drives" and extract individual files and folders
4) WinPE boot option -- can install a special boot option that allows you to boot to recovery information and do a repair or restore from there -- when Windows will not boot

What I recommend is the following:
1) Download and install Macrium Reflect (MR) from here: http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx
2) Run MR and choose the option: "Create an image of the partition(s) required to backup and restore Windows" to write a full backup to an external drive, USB stick, or DVDs
3) Use the option to create a boot USB stick or CD

My experience is that MR, when using the High Compression option, typically can compress the saved image file to about 50% of the USED space in the OS partition. This means if you have an 80GB OS partition, and 40GB is used, MR only needs about 20GB to store the image file.

I use this all the time and it typically takes less than 15 minutes to do the image backup and about the same time or less to do a restore. Plus, MR has the option to Add a Recovery Boot Menu entry. This allows you then to boot into WinPE, and you can then use that to do a restore -- when you can't boot into Windows!

NOW, you have the means to restore a full working system from the external drive, USB or DVDs stick in only a few minutes.

Good Luck

[redcloudz]

@WAWood

GREAT! Now I know how this recovery method works. Yes, I also think so, if the entire disk will be wiped out the 3rd party will be better. Since I never try that before unless recovery with the original existing partition, so I need someone to verify whether 3rd party partition software will work or just in vain.

Thanks a lot.