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What are these * partitions on W 10?


Hi

New here, was having trouble with formatting Sandisk Curzer Blade 32gb, eventually found free utility Macrorit Disk Partion Expert v3.9.5 and it did the trick. Windows on full (not quick) Format NTFS or Fat32 was an overnight job and didn't work when it was formatted. Macrorit didn't take long at all and works.

Thats the background to my query, once installed the utility also gave me details of my hard disk set up and I was surprised to see there 6 drives (partitions)



3 I understand; System, C: and Recovery but the 3 blank (no names) 2 NTFS and 1 FAT32

The FAT32 "EFI System Partition" I'm guessing is what I call the BIOS but what are "Reserved Partition" and "Unknown Partition?
 

Partition 1 = Windows OEM Recovery Tools Partition
Partition 2 = EFI Boot Files Partition
Partition 3 = Microsoft Reserved Partition
Partition 4 = Windows OS Partition
Partition 5 = Windows Upgrade Recovery Tools Partition
Partition 6 = OEM Recovery Image Partition

When you upgraded from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 - MS shrunk the OS partition and created a new partition between the Windows 8.1 OS partition and Windows 8.1 OEM Recovery Image partition...

Thus Knocking out the OEM Recovery... But easy enough to re-register the OEM Recovery..
So, I would leave the Partitions Intact and As-Is.. Just In Case...

Partition 1 = Windows OEM Recovery Tools Partition
Partition 2 = EFI Boot Files Partition
Partition 3 = Microsoft Reserved Partition
Partition 4 = Windows OS Partition
Partition 5 = Windows Upgrade Recovery Tools Partition
Partition 6 = OEM Recovery Image Partition

When you upgraded from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 - MS shrunk the OS partition and created a new partition between the Windows 8.1 OS partition and Windows 8.1 OEM Recovery Image partition...

Thus Knocking out the OEM Recovery... But easy enough to re-register the OEM Recovery..
So, I would leave the Partitions Intact and As-Is.. Just In Case...

Thanks Kyhi

A bit more background, I was having trouble with what I thought was a virus but everything I tried couldn't find it. So I wiped the whole HD (or thought I did - CCleaner I think) and reinstalled from rescue disks. That was my interest in Sandisks to Back up clean version and create a USB boot version.

Did all that the the thing came back. I thought it was hiding in onedrive so have uncoupled that but the symtons returned.

Juddering Lock Screen - bouncing up and down
Keyboard and mouse pad inactive
After bashing random combination of keys get through to password screen
Some more bashing before it lets me type
And what I type doesn't appear on the screen
I type one character and 4 or more appear
IOEEIOEEIUEEOII with a french acute accent above some of the letters
Using recovery disks / USB and eventually get back in and then everthing OK untill
I am typing a doc or putting search description in browser and the bloody silly letter start again
And I cant stop them so power lead and battery out.
Start over again
I lucky to have got this far

Could one of those nasty buggers be hiding in one of the hidden partitions?

This never happened in 8.1 and I probaly had 10 for 6 months no problems

Thanks

Peter

Could it be that the keyboard is physically bad?

If you want to do an absolute clean install of Windows 10 then you create a Windows 10 installation USB flash drive or DVD from an ISO file downloaded directly from Microsoft. Boot the computer from the flash drive or DVD. Select the custom install option. You will get a list of all partitions on the hard drive. Delete each partition, this will erase the entire hard drive. When you have nothing but one big unallocated space, click Next (NOT New), and install Windows 10 to the unallocated space.

That will wipe everything off the hard drive, including any OEM factory recovery partitions.

What are these * partitions on W 10?