How to Use GParted to Move the Recovery Partition and Its Alternative

Overview of GParted

GParted is a free partition editor to graphically manage your disk partitions. With it, you can create, delete, resize, move, check, or copy disk partitions and their file systems. GParted is a free and open-source tool and anyone can have access to it easily. This time, we' ll focus on moving recovery partition with this powerful third-party disk manager – GParted.

Why move the recovery partition?

First, what is the Windows recovery partition? Recovery partition is a partition without a drive letter whose size is around 450MB or 500MB for Windows 10. As its name suggests, the recovery partition is used to restore the Windows operating system to a certain status when you encounter any system failure. So, in other words, the recovery partition is harmless to your PC and you can delete the recovery partition whenever you want.

However, instead of deleting it, users may plan on moving the recovery partition for some special purposes. For example, they want to extend the C drive but the recovery partition is in the way between it and unallocated space in Disk Management (to extend a partition with unallocated space from Disk Management, you must ensure the unallocated space is right next to the partition or the option "Extend Volume" could be greyed out).

As Disk Management gives no option for moving partitions, it’ necessary to find another tool to get it done.

How to use GParted to move the recovery partition

Can GParted move Windows recovery partition? As the Windows built-in Disk Manager provides no options for partition relocation, GParted comes to be a good choice for this operation. Then, how to use this third-party software to perform the operation? Don’t worry. Just follow the step-by-step guide below.

Preparations:

1) Prepare a USB stick that has sufficient storage.

2) Download the Gparted image file to your PC.

1. Open the GParted zip file and extract it to your USB.

2. Run utils\win32\makeboot.bat from the USB stick and follow the onscreen guide to burn the GParted file to the USB stick.

3. Boot the PC from the USB by changing the booter from BIOS first.

4. Choose the default settings when you see the window as the image shows.

5. Select "Don’t touch keymap" and hit the "ENTER" key. Then, choose your own language.

6. Now, the home-interface of GParted appears and you can choose the recovery partition you want to move. Hit the move button to proceed.

7. Move the recovery partition by drag the slider leftwards or rightwards. Meanwhile, you can resize the partition by typing different values. When all is done, hit the "Resize/Move" button.

8. Hit "Apply" to commit the operation immediately.

The easiest way to move recovery partition

GParted is generally a good tool for moving the recovery partition but not the most ideal one as it’s too complex for beginners and you may also run into trouble – boot failure - after reconnecting the USB stick and restarting the PC. So, this time, I’ll introduce a much easier alternative to GParted – AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional – to help move the recovery partitions in only 3 steps.

Do you still use GParted to move recovery partition? This time, a much convenient tool is the best replacement. Download the demo and have a try right now!

Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional. When the program is fully loaded, right-click on the partition you want to move and select "Resize/Move Partition".

Step 2. Drag the partition rightwards and hit "OK".

Step 3. Click on "Apply" on the upper left of the home-interface and then, click on "Proceed" to commit the operation.

Optional. Extend a partition when unallocated space is not nearby

If the unallocated space and the partition you want to extend is not adjacent with each other, you can still apply this AOMEI product for the partition extension. With the "Merge Partitions" feature, you can combine unallocated space and the target partition even when they’re separated by other partitions.

Conclusion

This post explained how to use GParted to move the recovery partition correctly. Although it can be a little bit difficult for newbies, hopefully, after reading the step-by-step tutorial, you can perfectly handle it on your own. Meanwhile, AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional is a better alternative to GParted in Disk Management that’s able to move partitions in only 3 steps. You can also try other features including app mover and partition alignment of this powerful software. If you want to relocate partitions on Server PCs, you can try the Server edition.