I haven’t done anything related to partitions since I put my PC together around 10 years ago. I’m about to clone my hard drive to a new SSD using Macrium Reflect, and I see this. Can someone explain what exactly I’m looking at? Why are the partitions different sizes? Why is one labeled ‘unformatted’ and completely full, but not in red, while another is almost full and in red? Should any of this be affecting how I go about making this transfer? Should something be done to ensure those two partitions aren’t too full?
The default partition layout for Windows is pretty standard. Comparing it to what you have, the first one is likely the old Recovery partition, and the second one is the EFI System partition. The sizes can vary based on your setup. The reason you see two Recovery partitions could be due to a known bug with Windows 10 updates that created an extra one.
Alright, thanks for the help.
Those are probably hidden system reserved partitions. They should be fine to just proceed with. The most important data is on the C: drive. Since you’re cloning to a 2TB drive, maybe you can edit the C: drive to fill the whole drive. Not sure how Macrium does this, but it might be automatic. You can also do this in Windows by searching ‘Disk Management’, right-clicking the C: drive, and selecting ‘Extend Volume’.
Cool, thanks.
IDK much about partitions, but I’ve heard that the unformatted one shouldn’t affect your cloning as long as the main drive has enough space. Just make sure you back up your data before doing anything drastic.
What do you mean by unformatted? Does that mean there’s no data?
Yeah, it usually means it’s not set up to hold files. It’s there for system use, so you should be good.
You might want to check if those partitions are actually needed. If you’re not using them, it might be fine to leave them alone. Just focus on the C: drive for your cloning process.
I had a similar issue when I cloned my drive. I ended up just leaving the partitions alone, and everything worked out fine. Just make sure your C: drive has enough space to carry everything over.