How to Clone Recovery Partition to SSD/HDD in Windows 10, 8, 7?

Scenario

“I have an HP laptop with factory windows 10 preinstalled on a 500GB HDD. It comes with an HP recovery partition, which I would like to copy to a Samsung 850 EVO 250GB SSD as a backup and delete the original one to release the disk space. So how can I just copy or clone the recovery partition to the Samsung SSD? Any copy/cloning suggestions would be appreciated.”

What can recovery partition do for you?

There are basically two kinds of recovery partitions: Windows recovery partitions and computer supplier’s recovery partitions.

1. Windows recovery partition
Usually, the Windows 10 recovery partition takes about 450MB, Windows 8/8.1 200MB, and Windows 7 100MB. It'll be created when users create partitions on a GPT disk; and for MBR disk, this partition is called "System Reserved Partition". The Windows recovery partition allows you to boot into the Windows recovery environment (WinRE) to restore your computer to an earlier status when you need it.

2. OEM recovery partition
The OEM recovery partition is created by computer suppliers, like HP, Lenovo, or Dell. It takes up a substantial amount of disk space (7-20GB for different brands ). Since it stores the factory settings for application drivers and other items,  you can restore these default settings by pressing a specific key (different computer brand provides different key). 

How to clone recovery partition to SSD in Windows 10/8/7?

Due to the space of the recovery partition, many computer users would like to delete the recovery partition for releasing more free space. However, the recovery partition is very important. If you directly delete it without any preparation, then when your PC needs WinRE (Windows Recovery Environment), you won't see recovery options. So, how to delete the recovery partition safely? The most recommended way should be cloning recovery partition to another hard drive such as SSD or HDD first.

AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional is a great disk/partition cloning software that contains a disk clone wizard, partition clone wizard. You can use it to migrate OS to SSD/HDD, and clone recovery partition to SSD/HDD in Windows 11/10/8/7 easily. Here will display you how to copy recovery partition to another hard drive (SSD/HDD) via AOMEI Partition Assistant.

First, install AOMEI Partition Assistant on your Windows computer. Connect the SSD you prepared before to the computer. Then, you can follow the steps to do it.

Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant,  right-click the partition you want to clone and select the "Clone Partition" tool to run partition clone. (You can also click the "Clone" main tab and select "Clone Partition".)

Step 2. In next window, select the destination partition or unallocated space to hold your source partition, and then click "Confirm".

Step 3. Then, you will enter the Confirm interface where you can check the source and destination clone location. After all is set, you can click the "Confirm" button to continue.

Notes:

• There is a "4k alignment" option. If you want to copy a partition onto a SSD (Solid State Drive), ticking this option will optimize the read and write speed on this partition. It can also extend the life of the SSD.
• If you select the "Sector-by-Sector Clone" mode, the unallocated space must be equal or larger than source partition. If you tick the option, it will be unable to resize the destination partition.

Step 4. In the next window, you can click the "Settings" button to adjust the target partition size. As you can see from the screenshot, you could adjust the size of source partition in order to fit the target partition as per your need, or directly skip the step and click "Save".

Step 5. You can preview the partition copy operating by viewing the "Pending Operations". To commit the "Pending Operations", please click "Apply" and "Proceed".

The cloning process will start and you can check the cloning process. Once the process is completed successfully, you will get a congratulation window. Finally, you can check the partition layout on the destination disk will be identical to the source partition.

Summary

See, cloning recovery partition to SSD/HDD in Windows 11/10/8/7 is such an easy thing under the help of AOMEI Partition Assistant. It is more than a cloning software but also a great hard disk partition manager. It can make up for the deficiency of Disk Management, allowing you to extend volume with non-adjacent unallocated space, convert MBR and GPT without deleting partitions, convert dynamic disk to basic disk without deleting volumes, and so on. 

And it also provides AOMEI Partition Assistant Server Edition for Windows Server 2003, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2019, 2022 users.