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Windows 11 Clean Installation - Why is there a Recovery Partition?
I replace my old WD SDD with a brand new Samsung 990 Pro M2.2280 2TB (straight out of the box) into my Lenovo ThinkBook 14 2-in-1 G4 IML. During the installation process, it did not prompt me for my Windows 11 License Key. The laptop was also unable to connect to the internet (but i managed to skip this step).
I installed Windows 11 into the unallocated space on my SSD. There are no parition. After the installation, besides the C Drive that was automatically created, there is a EFI System Partition (100 MB in size) and a Recovery Partition (768 MB in size).
Question: Why is there a a Recovery Partition? Could i delete the partition and extend my C Drive into the unallocated space using native windows tools? I remember that the last time i do a clean installation of Windows 10 on another laptop, there is no Recovery Partition. Why is there a Recovery Partition now? Did i mis-perform any steps?
1 Reply
Your license is stored in the BIOS, and the installer retrieves it automatically.
Windows 11 creates a Recovery Partition during a clean install to provide tools for system repair, recovery, and troubleshooting. The reasons for this are:
Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) – The recovery partition contains WinRE, which provides access to advanced troubleshooting tools, including startup repair, system restore, command prompt, and reset options.
System Protection & Reset Options – If Windows encounters serious issues, you can use the recovery partition to reset or restore the system without needing external media.
Separation from OS Drive – Keeping recovery tools on a separate partition ensures they are available even if the main OS partition is corrupted.
You can delete the recovery partition during installation, but this removes access to built-in recovery features. Alternatively, you can install Windows without it and later move WinRE to the main OS partition manually.
