Forum Discussion

AlabamaCypress's avatar
AlabamaCypress
Iron Contributor
Mar 24, 2025

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 ...
Features
Raveel's avatar
Raveel
Copper Contributor
Mar 24, 2025

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.

 

Resources