If you find the recovery drive of your Windows 10 is full, the most effective way should be extending it with more disk space. Here is how to extend recovery drive step by step.
“So I updated my Windows 10 to the Spring Update 1803, and I get a new partition. Windows keeps prompting me that the ‘partition G:\’ is full. I checked that partition which is a 450MB drive with 400MB in use. I can see there is G:\Recovery\WindowsRE\Winre.wim inside the drive with the help of disk cleanup. It seems like a Recovery Partition. Can I remove it? If not, how can I increase the partition space? I just don’t want to see the prompting any more. Help!”
It is a help post on Recovery Drive is full in Windows 10. What is the Recovery partition and how come you get it? What can you do about that drive? Everything about the Windows 10 450MB Recovery partition will be introduced in the next part.
When you install Windows 10 on a GPT disk, you’ll get a Recovery Partition (System Reserved Partition on MBR disk) and an EFI system partition without a drive letter. The Recovery Partition size is about 450MB or 500MB for Windows 10 (200MB for Windows 8/8.1 and 100MB for Windows 7). For Windows 11, the size of the recovery partition depends on the specific configuration of your system, but Windows 11 recovery partition size typically requires 500 MB to 1 GB.
Recovery partition, as its name implies, allows you to restore Windows OS to a certain state. So to some extent, it is not harmful to system booting and you don’t need to delete it. The partition will also be created after a system upgrading like Windows 7 to Windows 8/8.1/10 or a simply updating. There is no wonder multiple Recovery partitions in Windows 10 have been created.
By default, Recovery drive is hidden and cannot be accessed in Windows Explorer. So the problem in the example is a specific issue about that update. It can be fixed by removing drive letter of the partition. Also, you can disable low disk space check in Registry Editor.
There are two ways in total to fix Windows 10 450MB Recovery partition full in different situations. Let’s get to know them one by one.
Ensure that the Recovery drive in Windows 10/8.1/8/7 is not protected by System Protection. Then, delete any files that are not associated with system recovery from the drive.
In Windows 10, 8.1, 8, or 7, the following is applicable:
Step 1. Right-click on "This PC"/"My Computer" and select "Properties." Subsequently, select "System Protection."
Step 2. Locate the "Configure" icon in the System Protection tab.
Step 3. Determine whether the recovery partition is enabled or disabled. Select this drive and click the "Configure" button if it is indicated as "On." Select the Disable system protection option in the pop-up window.
The recovery drive is a seperate partition on your computer that contains all the necessary files to enable you to completely restore your system in the event of an unstable system. To resolve the limited disk space error, it is possible to delete unnecessary files.
Step 1. Type "disk cleanup" in the search field located on the taskbar and select "Disk Cleanup" from the list of results.
Step 2. Choose the drive that requires cleanup, and then click "OK."
Step 3. Select the checkbox adjacent to the file type you wish to eliminate.
Step 4. Click "OK" and wait for the process to be finished.
Tip: Clean system files can help you more.
A "hard drive full but not" error is reported by certain users, and the recovery drive D is not anticipated. This may be the result of hidden files. In order to ascertain whether concealed items are occupying the disk space of the recovery drive, you may attempt to unhide files and folders. Step 1. In Windows, access the Windows Control Panel and select File Explorer Options.
Step 2. Navigate to the "Change folder and search options" option in the File Explorer Options window.
Step 3. Select "Show hidden files, folders, and drives and remove Hide protected operating system files (Recommended)" in the Folder Options window.
Alternatively, you can try to extend the Recovery drive to make it bigger when it is almost full in Windows 10. If there is adjacent unallocated space behind the Recovery drive, you can use the Disk Management or DiskPart to extend the partition. If not, you can resort to the free partition manager:AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard which is more advanced than Windows inbuilt tool.
If there is unallocated space, but not adjacent to the recovery drive, it allows you to move the partition, which locates in the middle of the recovery partition and unallocated space, to the right side to make them adjacent. At last, extend the recovery drive with the unallocated space. Besides, you can also use its “Merge Partitions”feature to directly merge the non-adjacent unallocated space into the to-be-extended partition.
Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard on your Windows 10. Right-click the Recovery drive and select "Advanced" > "Merge Partitions".
Step 2. Tick the unallocated space and click on “OK”.
Step 3. Click "Apply" and then "Proceed" to execute the operations.
The advanced version AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional allows you to allocate free space from existing partition to another without shrinking and merging.
Note: If you need, you can also delete Recovery partition from your Windows system disk.
When you find Recovery drive full in Windows 10, you have two solutions for corresponding situations, remove drive letter of Recovery drive and make it hidden, or extend the Recovery drive to contain more space. AOMEI Partition Assistant also helps you copy Recovery partition to USB drive if the need ever arises.