Are the 2 recovery partitions required

[Jasonyork]

Would like to resize and reorganize the partitions on my ENVY dv7 7298 laptop.

I see that there are 2 partitions labled as recovery.  One is 400 MB and has diagonal hatching through it.  THe other is almost 30 GB.  I understand the larger one is the recovery image I need to recover the computer - but what is the second one? 

It looks like 100% of the drive space is free.  Do I need this partition and why?

Also curious to know what the minimum size for the EFI partition is, because it also seems to be 100% free from data.  I want to shrink it as much as possible.

Finally (and this is probably more a rant than something anyone can help with) why don't I get a windows CD or recovery CDs with my purchase any more - looked on teh HP site and I have to pay over $40 for this?  Windows CDs used to come with the machines.  We're spending $1,000 plus on something, and you can't throw in a $0.50 disc?  This reflects poorly on my perception of HP machines... 

[CherylG]

You have software on the machine to burn Recovery Disks.Move your mouse to the upper right corner of the screen, click Search, and type recovery

.
In the search results on the left side of the screen, click Recovery Manager .

If you are prompted for an Administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation. If a User Account Control window asks if you want to allow the program to make changes to the computer, click Yes. When Recovery Manager opens, look at the right column_click on 'Recovery Media Creation'.

I highly recommend you burn this set before you start messing with the partitions because Recovery from the partition usually no longer works after altering partitions.

[Jasonyork]

Thank you for the response Cheryl.

I have created recovery discs for future use.

When I attempt to resize partitions, I can only resize the C: partition.  Windows is supposed to take up 20GB (according to various websites), however, I can not shrink this partition smaller than 450 GB.   Do you know why this might be? 

Also - why would the recovery partition be 1.5 times larger than the OS is supposed to take up?

I have left the recovery partitions in place andthe boot up F11 recovery function still seems to work.  (did not try a full restore, but the process was initiated and option was available)

[Hewjr100]

Just read your post. Just to let you know, if you already created recovery media you, you can delete recovery partiton. Best way is thru recovery manager in windows GUI.

Next AFAIK from experience leave the 400 mb partition alone. It more or less acts similar to a windows repair disk, but it is on the hdd instead.

BTW when you delete recovery partition, the recovery manager also extends the c drive automatically, so you will have two or three partitions, depending if you disk is MBR or GPT?

Henry