Hidden Partitions

Question

I realize that certain partitions are hidden for good reason.  But the problem I have is that when I do a full system backup (twice a month), I open Macrium Reflect and it shows drive letters assigned to four different partitions.  As you can see from the image below,  the UEFI partition labeled ESP is given the letter E.  The Winretool partition is given the letter X.  The OS partition is given the letter C.  And the Dell PBR partition is given the letter Y.  I'm being told that the hidden partitions should not have an assigned letter in Macrium Reflect.  This just started happening recently.  After I do the backup,  the hidden partitions are no longer hidden.  They show up in File Explorer, next to the C drive.  I have to use a third party partition wizard to remove the assigned letters.  Then they no longer show up in File Explorer.  Does anybody have a clue to why this started happening and is there something I can do to prevent it from occurring?

Answer 1

Backup operations can rely on System Volume Information in the System partition. What's important is it doesn't have a drive letter to accidentally have backups written there. EFI is pretty well protected against this, but always remove a letter if it should get one, with a partition manager if necessary.

Answer 2

Thanks for the response, Greg.  WizTree isn't the problem.  I've had it on my pc for about 2 years.  I looked into the different partitions, but I have to admit, I'm not real sure what should be there and what shouldn't.  One thing I do recall,  last month or maybe the month before that,  when I was creating a bootable rescue media in Macrium Reflect, I switched from Windows PE to Windows RE and added Wifi drivers.  Don't know if that matters, but it might.  My ESP partition does seem a lot smaller now.

Answer 3

Never heard of WizTree so it could be the cause. Likewise don't remember seeing this specific problem, and I've seen about everything in ten years daily in forums. The few times System Reserved got lettered it was a backup app, though, because we found the files there. Look in that image partition that's oversize to see if you see any folders that shouldn't be there.

Answer 4

Thanks for replying so quickly, Greg.  But it doesn't really tell me anything.  I've been using Macrium Reflect for a couple of years and it's never done that before.  I also use WizTree and it also recognizes the extra drives: E, X  and Y.  This just started happening after last month's Microsoft update.  When I go to Disk Manger, the drives are not listed.  When I go into diskpart, the drives are not listed there either.  I'll run system scan and DISM repair to see if that helps.   It's not a big problem, but it's one of those things that I know shouldn't be there but is.  Thanks again.

Answer 5

Hi Nova. I'm Greg, an installation specialist, 10 year Windows MVP, and Volunteer Moderator here to help you.

Of those partitions only C should have a drive letter. I have not heard before the Macrium file backup or imaging app creates drive letters and don't know shy they would, so I'd remove them and if the problem persists take a break from Macrium and manually back up your files by copying the User folders monthly to an external drive, use one or more real time Cloud backups like OneDrive for Documents and Pictures (5gb free) and Google Drive backup for all User folders (15gb free). Then take periodic Macrium image backups which are not known to do this.

Those WinRE and PBR image partitions hold Dell Recovery and repair tools. One of the 400mb likely contains the Windows Recovery folder that boot repair tools if WIndows can't start- you can assign a letter to see which. And of course the ESP is the Windows EFI System Partition which boots Windows, followed by a MSR reserved partition saved for possible future use.

I hope this helps. Feel free to ask back any questions and keep me posted. If you will wait to choose if I resolved your problem, I will keep working with you until it's resolved.

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