Had this empty "system reserved" space without fully knowing what it is

Question

So for years I've had this "system reserved" drive which came after I once had formated my HDD plenty of years ago. I've never really been bothered by it but I have wondered if it's a hinderance of sorts, so far it hasn't really but I'd love to know more about it.

Here are some screenshots. Within "this PC" -- Within the drive itself -- Within Disk manager Can I delete it's partition?

Do you have UEFI implemented? The System Reserved partition is likely for UEFI. The Recovery Partition is just what it says. My "System Reserved" Partition is labeled Healthy EF System Partition. — John, Sep 02 '21 at 22:30
DO NOT DELETE THE PARTITION All you have to do is remove the drive letter. — Ramhound, Sep 02 '21 at 23:33
Does this answer your question? How to clean an E: drive (new Recovery drive since Windows 10 1803) on HP laptop. The duplicate mentions a different partition, but the solution is the same, whatever you do don’t delete it — Ramhound, Sep 02 '21 at 23:36

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 02 '21 at 23:00

0

The "System Reserved" partition (the first partition in your "within disk manager" screenshot) is used for booting, it contains the Windows boot loader and the boot configuration database (BCD), and must not be deleted (otherwise Windows won’t boot anymore).

Usually, this drive is hidden (no drive letter assigned), but from one of your screenshots it appears that you have assigned it drive letter D:

On UEFI systems, this partition is not there, but instead its function is taken over by the "EFI System partition", with basically the same functionality: Boot files and Boot Configuration Database.

answered Sep 02 '21 at 23:00

Ro-ee

1,960

Microsoft’s documentation indicates the partition should exist on GPT disks. – Ramhound Sep 02 '21 at 23:40
Yes, but on GPT disks, it is called "EFI system partition" and has a specific GUID, whereas on MBR discs it is a normal partition, but the NTFS file system has the label "System reserved" (or the equivalent string in the Operating System language. German Windows for example has this named "System-reserviert", Italian Windows has "Riservato per il sistema"... – Ro-ee Sep 03 '21 at 20:30

Had this empty "system reserved" space without fully knowing what it is

1 Answers1