Delete BIOS recovery partitions?

[shawnwall]

I've updated my notebook BIOS twice at this point, and created the recommended recovery partition both times. I just noticed it created a 2nd 8GB partition on the 2nd update, and the first one is still there. Both are listed with no name in disk management in win10. Is it safe to delete these partitions? I'd like to free up the space if possible. 

[MKazi]

@shawnwall

Welcome to HP Support Forums. 🙂 I came across your post and understand that you have an HP Spectre X360 laptop. I read that you have updated the BIOS twice and this has created two 8GB partitions. Thanks for describing the issue in detail.

Firstly, I won't recommend you to perform BIOS update twice. BIOS update may be done only once and when you're facing an issue with the laptop. Moreover, your laptop should have come with a recovery partition already. Secondly, you may try to delete the latest partition to free some space. Let me know how it goes. Feel free to reach out for any technical queries. Cheers!

[shawnwall]

The reason the BIOS was updated twice is because 2 separate BIOS update versions have come out since I purchased the machine. Both were installed via the HP software preinstalled on the machine.

I cannot find any dates for the 8GB partitions in disk management, so it is impossible for me to know which is which. Note these are not the full *recovery* partition on the machine, these are different 8gb partitions for BIOS recovery, created by the BIOS update software.

[MKazi]

@shawnwall

Thanks for the reply. I assume, the software may not have detected that already a BIOS update was performed. Anyhow, you could delete one of the 8 GB partitions. I did some research and found that when you upgrade the BIOS on your notebook, a copy of the previous BIOS version is stored on your hard drive. Many HP notebook computers have an emergency BIOS recovery feature that allows you to recover and install the last known good version of the BIOS from the hard drive, as long as the hard drive remains functional. This emergency recovery feature is separate from the BIOS and is designed to work in the event of a catastrophic BIOS failure.

To know more about restoring the BIOS, please view this video: http://hp.care/2dI18Vb. Keep me posted for any assistance. Cheers! 🙂

[shawnwall]

Yes, the partitions exist exactly for that feature. So would it be safe to delete them if I do not need them? Again, given there do not appear to be any dates associated with the partitions, I cannot tell which is which.

[MKazi]

@ shawnwall

Hi, you could delete the partitions. However, if you delete both partitions then you may not be able to rollback the BIOS incase of a BIOS corruption. Thanks!