prevent Windows from creating an empty partition after repair install or clean install

Paul Chou 21

I am an Windows Insider in the Dev. channel. Whenever a build is installed or when I do a repair installation, a new partition gets created. How can I prevent it from getting created?

Paul Chou 21 Reputation points

2023-05-10T06:48:30.55+00:00

How do I disable it and will it give me the space back? The reason I ask is when I delete the partition and extend the C drive, Windows Defender offline scan will not start.
Erik Moreau 741 Reputation points MVP

2023-05-10T06:57:07.9133333+00:00

Defender offline also uses this partition, WinRE to launch the offline scan.
Paul Chou 21 Reputation points

2023-05-10T07:05:30.01+00:00

Thank you for the info. That means I lose C drive space after a partition is created after an update. Anything I can do about it or any prevention? I think I know that WRE is important but in the same time, I do not want to lose C drive space.

1 answer

Erik Moreau 741 Reputation points MVP

2023-05-10T05:40:54.0933333+00:00

Hi Paul,

This extra partition you are reffering to is this the recovery partition at the end of your OS disk? (890MB in my example)

This one is not acctually empty, it contains the Windows Recovery enviroment (WinRE)

running regagentc /info in an elevated terminal will show this

You can remove this partition (disabling WinRE for recovery purposes)

Any OS upgrade or repair will resotre it

hope this helps,
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