How to move Windows Recovery Partition

If you ever need to move a Windows Recovery partition, here’s some tools that may be useful.

The normal use-case for moving a Recovery partition is when you have unused disk space ‘beyond’ it, which you want to use to expand an existing partition, for example , see the screenshot below :

Step 1. Save the contents of the current Recovery partition into the C: drive :
Open an Elevated Command window and double check the location of the current Recovery Environment (RE):

C:> REAGENTC /INFO

You should see that RE is ‘Enabled’, and see the disk partition number (in this case , partition 4 ):

Windows RE status:         Enabled
Windows RE location:       \\?\GLOBALROOT\device\harddisk0\partition4\Recovery\WindowsRE

Now save the Recovery contents :

C:> REAGENTC /DISABLE

( this moves the Winre.WIM Recovery Env file into C:\Windows\system32\Recovery )

Step 2. Use DISKPART to delete the old Recovery partition :

In the same Elevated Command window, start up DISKPART :

C:> DISKPART

• Use LIST DISK command to identify which is the disk where the old Recovery partition is located. If you have multiple disks in your PC, use the DETAIL DISK command to double-check you’re choosing the correct disk.
• then use the SEL DISK x command to select the correct disk;
• then use LIST PAR to show the partitions on that disk :

DISKPART> lis dis

  Disk ###  Status         Size     Free     Dyn  Gpt
  --------  -------------  -------  -------  ---  ---
  Disk 0    Online          447 GB   223 GB        *

DISKPART> sel dis 0

Disk 0 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> lis par

  Partition ###  Type              Size     Offset
  -------------  ----------------  -------  -------
  Partition 1    System             200 MB  1024 KB
  Partition 2    Reserved            16 MB   201 MB
  Partition 3    Primary            222 GB   217 MB
  Partition 4    Recovery           862 MB   222 GB

DISKPART>

• now use SEL PAR 4 to select the Recovery partition ( this should match the partition number that was shown in the REAGENTC/INFO from Step 1)
• the use DEL PAR OVERRIDE to delete the selected partition

Step 3. Use Windows Disk Management tool to expand your C: partition :

• N.B. make sure you leave at least 500MB free space at the end of the disk : you will use this to create the new Recovery partition.

Step 4. Use DISKPART to create a new Recovery partition : \

DISKPART> sel dis 0
	create par pri (or use Disk Mgmt GUI if you want to specify size etc exactly )
	format quick label=winRE
	set id=de94bba4-06d1-4d40-a16a-bfd50179d6ac
  (or for MBR disks, set id=27 )
  (  LIS PAR should now show par 4 is 'Recovery' type )
  finally,
	gpt attributes=0x8000000000000001
			(i.e  required/protected AND no drive letter to be assigned)

Step 5. Use REAGENTC to move the Recovery Env file into the new Recovery partition : \

C:> REAGENTC /ENABLE

• You should see a success message REAGENTC.EXE: Operation Successful.