Help with the Mysteries of extra Windows 10 partitions?
Posted: Mon Jan 21, 2019 7:20 am
Hi all...
On the other Windows 10 machines I've got, Windows seems to install 2 or 3 extra partitions on a fresh install (not an upgrade). I didn't try to install BootIt UEFI on those machines. Just looking at one of them, I see:
1. 499MB "OEM Partition"
2. 100MB "EFI System"
3. 820MB "OEM Partition" (this one is in the middle of my other partitions on the boot drive)
I know the EFI System partition is for booting; I suppose one of the other OEM Partitions is a recovery partition. Not sure what the other OEM partition is for (all of them are hidden/unmounted).
I just recently installed first BootIt UEFI and then Windows 10 on a machine of mine (also fresh installs). I let BootIt UEFI install itself where it wanted (400MB at start of drive). Then I installed Windows 10 on the remaining space. At first it said it had created 3 partitions - 2 smaller ones and 1 big one. Later, when I checked, the extra partitions seemed to have disappeared (or at least weren't shown in the Windows Drive Manager). Later, looking at the drive with the BootIt partition manager, I saw that at least one of the extra partitions was still there, but hidden from the Drive Manager.
When I first booted the system, it looks like Windows had overridden my setup to boot to BootIt. I'm not sure where it would have put its boot files, though; perhaps in BootIt's EFI partition?
In any case, I ran BootIt from a USB drive, and it appeared to have automatically corrected things, so when I removed the USB stick, it booted to BootIt again. I MAY have changed the boot partition in the BIOS (there was a lot going on in this install, so I can't recall now).
I'm not quite used to UEFI booting, especially when I try to use a non-Windows boot manager. One thing that boggles my mind - what happened to the other partitions Windows created when I installed it? They seem to have just... disappeared?
Can someone chime in and tell me what's going on here? I'm used to boot changes happening only manually, when I direct software to make them happen. All these magically new and/or disappeared partitions, etc. are confusing me.
- Tim
On the other Windows 10 machines I've got, Windows seems to install 2 or 3 extra partitions on a fresh install (not an upgrade). I didn't try to install BootIt UEFI on those machines. Just looking at one of them, I see:
1. 499MB "OEM Partition"
2. 100MB "EFI System"
3. 820MB "OEM Partition" (this one is in the middle of my other partitions on the boot drive)
I know the EFI System partition is for booting; I suppose one of the other OEM Partitions is a recovery partition. Not sure what the other OEM partition is for (all of them are hidden/unmounted).
I just recently installed first BootIt UEFI and then Windows 10 on a machine of mine (also fresh installs). I let BootIt UEFI install itself where it wanted (400MB at start of drive). Then I installed Windows 10 on the remaining space. At first it said it had created 3 partitions - 2 smaller ones and 1 big one. Later, when I checked, the extra partitions seemed to have disappeared (or at least weren't shown in the Windows Drive Manager). Later, looking at the drive with the BootIt partition manager, I saw that at least one of the extra partitions was still there, but hidden from the Drive Manager.
When I first booted the system, it looks like Windows had overridden my setup to boot to BootIt. I'm not sure where it would have put its boot files, though; perhaps in BootIt's EFI partition?
In any case, I ran BootIt from a USB drive, and it appeared to have automatically corrected things, so when I removed the USB stick, it booted to BootIt again. I MAY have changed the boot partition in the BIOS (there was a lot going on in this install, so I can't recall now).
I'm not quite used to UEFI booting, especially when I try to use a non-Windows boot manager. One thing that boggles my mind - what happened to the other partitions Windows created when I installed it? They seem to have just... disappeared?
Can someone chime in and tell me what's going on here? I'm used to boot changes happening only manually, when I direct software to make them happen. All these magically new and/or disappeared partitions, etc. are confusing me.
- Tim