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Tiger00ds's avatar
Tiger00ds
Iron Contributor
May 26, 2025

Partition question on clean install for a dell laptop

I've got a Dell Inspiron 15 5510 laptop purchased December 2021 that came with Windows 10. I did one Windows 10 clean install about 2 years ago. Right now I want to do a Windows 11 clean install and I've got some questions about deleting old partitions during the install. I ran the Disk Management utility and attached a screenshot.

Any idea why there are two Recovery partitions?

 

3 Replies

  • Nobel_Baynes's avatar
    Nobel_Baynes
    Steel Contributor

    Yeah, delete all partitions during a clean install. Windows 11 will automatically create the necessary ones.

  • My advice is to understand the purpose of the primary, recovery, and system retention partitions, back up important data, delete the redundant recovery partition, manage the partitions with the help of Dell SupportAssist tool, and manually adjust the partitions by customizing the installation when installing Windows 11, and consult with Dell official support if you have any questions.

  • svermaak's avatar
    svermaak
    Copper Contributor

    One is probably from Dell and the other was likely created during your clean Windows 10 install. When Windows installs fresh and detects there's no suitable recovery partition (or doesn’t want to reuse an OEM one), it will create a new, larger one to support 

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