Is It Safe to Delete Recovery Partition in Windows 10 & 11?

What is a recovery partition?

Many users have this problem due to a lack of basic knowledge of the recovery partition. Some might have two recovery partitions on their Windows PC, while the other might have only one but occupies much free capacity on the disk. So, first, let’s see more details about the recovery partition.

In the Windows system, generally, there are two types of recovery partitions: Windows recovery partition and computer manufacturer recovery partition (OEM recovery partition).

When glitches occur, users can boot into the Windows recovery environment (WinRE) to restore their computer via the Windows recovery partition. The other one, the OEM recovery partition designed by manufacturers, enables you to hit a particular key (typically F9 for HP and F12 for Dell) to restore your machine to factory default settings.

The capacity they need on the disk is also different. OEM recovery partition requires 7-20GB, much more capacity than 100-450MB asked by the Windows recovery partition on the system disk.

Is it safe to delete Windows 10/11 recovery partition?

Although users can delete the recovery partition, once it’s removed, Windows RE and the factory default settings are inaccessible. Thus, it is unsafe to delete the recovery partition, unless you make a recovery disk with your USB drive lest you need it after you removed the recovery partition.

How to delete healthy recovery partition in Windows 10/11

If you've already decided to delete the recovery partition with or without making a recovery USB drive, then we can continue. In this part, we’ll show you how to delete the recovery partition via Diskpart and another third-party partition assistant.

1. Delete recovery partition in Windows 10/11 with Diskpart

First, we need to check which partitions are recovery partitions on your disk in Disk Management. Please remember the size of the recovery partition which can help you recognize the recovery partition in the Diskpart.

Then, let’s start.

Step 1. Type “CMD” in the search box and press “Enter” to open it. Then type “diskpart” and hit “Enter”.

Step 2. Type “list disk” to list all your disks. Then, type “select disk x” (x is the number of the target disk with the recovery partition) and hit “Enter” to choose it.

Step 3. Type “list partition” to show all partitions on the selected disk, and type “select partition x” (x is the number of the recovery partition to delete) to choose the recovery partition. Then type “delete partition override”.

Step 4. Then in the new partition list, you can see the second partition has been removed. If your disk only has one recovery partition, you can close Diskpart.

In the example we show, there are two recovery partitions, if your disk also has two, and you wish to delete all, please continue the operation as the picture shows.

After you delete all recovery partitions, there’ll be unallocated space on your disk, you can use it to extend your C drive capacity in Disk Management.

2. Remove recovery partition via AOMEI Partition Assistant

As you see, if you use Diskpart, you need to ensure carefully that all commands are correct, especially the number of the disk and the partition you want to select. Once you make a mistake, you might delete the wrong partition.

However, in AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard, you can see all details of your disks and partitions in the clear-cut window. It’s a free Windows disk/partition manager for Windows 11/10/8/8.1/7/XP PC with various helpful features like resize partition, create partition, wipe partition…

Step 1. Download AOMEI Partition Assistant. Install and open it. Right-click on the recovery partition you want to delete and select "Delete Partition", and then click “OK”.

Step 2. Select a method to remove the recovery partition and click “OK”.

Step 3. The recovery partition will be displayed as unallocated space. Make sure that is the partition you want to get rid of and click "Apply" to make the operation in the process. If you select the wrong partition you can click “Undo” or “Discard” to stop.

Now the recovery partition is unallocated space, you can select “Merge Partition” to add this capacity to the C drive to extend the C drive.

Another trick to extend C drive space without deleting the recovery partition

The reason why many users wish to know “Is it safe to delete recovery partition in Windows 10?” is the insufficient disk space--after all, OEM recovery partition devours too much space, and Windows OS might create a new recovery partition after you upgrade your system.

AOMEI Partition Assistant offers not only one feature to help users to extend C drive space. As we introduced before, the recovery partitions are important when you need to use WinRE or reset to factory default settings. If you can extend the C drive space without getting rid of the recovery partition, then “Is it safe to delete recovery partition in Window 10?” won’t be a tangled problem.

The Professional Edition of AOMEI Partition Assistant allows users to allocate free space from other partitions to the target drive on the same disk. If the D drive has enough free space, you can use this convenient tool to share some to the crowded C drive with easy operations.

To employ this function, you need to upgrade to the Pro edition first.

Step 1. Launch AOMEI Partition Assistant, right-click the partition from which you want to allocate free space, and select "Allocate Free Space".

Step 2. Type in the size of the free space which you want to share from the D partition and this free space will be directly added to the destination partition.

Step 3. Click "Apply" to execute this operation. In the pop-out window, you can see how much time it will cost you to finish this operation.

Then you will need to restart your computer to finish all operations.

Final lines

The answer is perhaps no about the problem “Is it safe to delete recovery partition in Windows 10/11?” But can you safely extend C drive capacity without deleting recovery partitions? Yes. With the help of AOMEI Partition Assistant, you can organize your disks and partitions easily and safely.

By the way, this tool is also available for Server users. If you need to remove the recovery partition in a Windows Server or wish to try other services to optimize your computer, you can choose the Server Edition.