How to Fix Disk Management Windows 11 Delete Recovery Partition not Working?

What is Recovery Partition?

Recovery partition is a special partition on the system drive and is used to restore the Windows system to its factory settings in case of any severe system problems. To protect the recovery partition from being deleted accidentally, there is no drive letter for the recovery partition and only a "Help" option showed when you want to use Disk Management Windows 11 delete recovery partition.

There are two types of recovery partition: one is Windows Recovery Partition which allows you to boot into the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) to restore your computer in the event of some system crashes; the other is called OEM Partition which is created by some computer manufacturers like Dell, Lenovo and HP before delivery and enables you to press a specific key (usually F9 for HP and F12 for Dell) to recover your computer to factory default settings. Usually, the supplier’s recovery partition takes more space than Windows Recovery Partition.

▣ Does Windows 11 need a Recovery Partition?

As we have said, Windows considers the recovery partition as a backup of Windows operating systems, so you can keep the recovery partition in your Windows 11 computer if you worry about any unexpected system errors like Windows 11 white screen of death and it won't consume you much space on your Windows 11 hard drive.

▣ Is it OK to delete Recovery Partition?

The answer is positive. Although the recovery partition is seen as very important, you can still delete the recovery partition without no harm. Without a recovery partition, you may have some problems accessing some of the built-in recovery features, but there are still many other ways to repair your computer, and many of them are much more useful than using a simple recovery partition.

Therefore, as long as you have already made a full backup of the recovery partition like cloning the partition to an external hard drive, you can certainly delete the recovery partition.

Disk Management Windows 11 delete Recovery Partition failed

Sometimes, you may need to delete the recovery partition for different reasons such as freeing up more space or removing the extra recovery partitions like the below user case:

"Can you help, please? My main SSD which has basically only Windows 11 on it has a number of 'Recovery Partitions'. This drive has been upgraded a couple of times to Windows 10, and most recently upgraded to Windows 11. So my question is, can some of those Recovery Partitions be removed, and if so, how to delete recovery partition in Windows 11?"

No matter which situation you are in, your first thought might be using Windows 11 Disk Management, the convenient disk manager, to make it. However, when you open Disk Management and right-click recovery partition as you do to other partitions, you have no choice but to only select "Help" in the extended menu as we have mentioned before.

What does it mean? It means Disk Management Windows 11 delete recovery partition is not allowed. But don't worry, since the recovery partition can be deleted, there must be some methods for you to get it done. Keep reading to get the solutions.

How to delete Recovery Partition in Windows 11 safely?

Windows won't let you delete the recovery partition in Disk Management. And the following content will show you how to delete recovery partition in Windows 11 in two different ways when "Disk Management delete recovery partition' doesn't work.

Option 1. Windows 11 Delete Recovery Partition via DiskPart

DiskPart is another built-in disk management tool that helps you manage your disks, so you can delete recovery partitions with DiskPart. Below are the steps.

Step 1. Type "diskpart.exe" in the search box, in the listed results, right-click on Diskpart and select "Run as administrator".

Step 2. At a Diskpart prompt, type the following command:

list disk (all the disks on your computer will be displayed)

select disk 1 (select the disk that contains the recovery partition, remember to replace 1 with the right number on your computer)

list partition (all the partitions on the selected disk will be shown here)

select partition 1 (specify the recovery partition using the partition number)

delete partition override (force delete the selected partition using the override parameter)

Although DiskPart is able to delete the recovery partition, it's easy to fail or delete the wrong partition due to improper operations without a clear interface to display the details of each partition. If you are not familiar with DiskPart, this is obviously not the best choice for you.

Option 2. Windows 11 Delete Recovery Partition via AOMEI Partition Assistant (Recommended)

Using the command line in DiskPart to Windows 11 delete recovery partition is too difficult for many computer users and it has some potential problems we have described above. Therefore, we recommend you use third-party partition manager software to remove the recovery partition.

AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard is a completely free program that allows you to delete recovery partitions in Windows 11 safely and instantly. With a graphic and clear interface, you can know the exact condition of each partition so that delete the recovery partition easily and don’t need to worry about the deletion of the wrong drive.

More conveniently, after deleting, you can even directly use the space to create a new partition or extend C drive with the help of AOMEI software. Now, let's see how to delete the recovery partition in Windows 11 with only three clicks.

Step 1. Install and open AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. 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.

In a few seconds, you will have the recovery partition deleted. As displayed, this method is much easier than using DiskPart.

Summary

From this passage, you have known something about "Disk Management Windows 11 delete recovery partition". When you can't delete the recovery partition in Disk Management, you can switch to DiskPart or a third-party disk manager.

By comparison, AOMEI software is more effective and convenient. And if you upgrade to the Professional edition, you can experience more fantastic features: clone disk without rebooting, convert MBR to GPT without losing data, wipe hard drive permanently and completely, etc.