Merging Unused Recovery Partition Resulted in Being Unable to Boot Windows 10

AudioMan612 · February 25

Hello,

I wanted to remove an unused recovery partition at the beginning of the system drive of one of my PC's. I first tried the free version of AOMEI to accomplish this, which said it would need to create a Windows PE environment in order to do so (not surprised by this). Well, selecting OK to this has now stopped the PC from being able to boot. I have tried everything I can think of in diskpart as well as bootrec, and purchased the pro version of AOMEI Partition Manager to try to fix this, but have not had any luck.

Here's where I might have made a mistake (in addition to not backing up): while the PC was in this unbootable mistake, I figured I might as well get the recovery partition merge done, so I went ahead and merged it with the system partition. This appeared to work fine. That said, I have still not been able to get the PC to be bootable, either with bootrec or AOMEI Partition Manager.

There is something strange happening: the PC seems to be changing drive letters of the partitions unexpectedly. The PC has 2 drives in it. The system drive is the 2nd drive (drive 1; drive 0 is a non-system drive). For reasons I can't figure out, the system partition keeps getting assigned drive letter D, when I know for sure it was drive C before. The main partition of the non-system drive keeps getting assigned C instead. I am able to change this using diskpart, but then things end up getting changed back, and I'm not sure why. I am suspicious that this is the root of the issue because the system partition on drive 2 should be the C drive, with the D drive being on the other disk.

Any help would be appreciated before I just give up and wipe the machine. This feels like it should be salvageable to me. Thank you!

aiArtisan · February 25

Hello Audioman, I understand you wanted to delete your Windows Recovery partition WinRec, and now your PC does not boot.

Before making any disk changes with any software, always make full disk image backup, or clone. Safety first.

Please go to another working PC, and create Partition Assistant USB, then post a screenshot of your disk.

"recovery partition merge done, so I went ahead and merged it with the system partition"

Please link us to which article told you to merge the System and WinRec partitions, I have not read any article about that. The System partition should be left alone, that is what boots you to Windows.

Before making any further changes, please backup your full disk image using Backupper, or clone it, or manually copy your personal files to another disk.

The classic boot repair commands

bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /fixboot
bootrec /scanos
bootrec /rebuildbcd
Bcdboot <Letter>:/Windows
Advanced instructions:

If you have tried these commands and it still does not boot, you could try Lazesoft.

Please reply with the answers to:
1) Which motherboard mode Legacy-BIOS, UEFI-CSM, UEFI-nonCSM?
2) What PC brand, year, model #, desktop or laptop?
3) HDD, SSHD, SSD 2.5", SSD M.2 SATA, SSD M.2 NVMe?
4) Hard Drive partition table MBR or GPT?
5) Windows version 10, 11, Home, Pro, Enterprise?

Backupper WinPE USB:

Add custom drivers, such as NVMe, if necessary.

Partition Assistant WinPE USB:

Add custom drivers, such as NVMe, if necessary.

Aomei (Win)PE Builder USB:

Best for PCs before 2020, includes Partition Assistant, Backupper, Recuva, 7zip, OSF Mount, CPU-Z, Bootice, DiskMgmt.msc. Supports x64 portable apps. Does not support any additional drivers, such as some internal M.2 NVMe disks.

Free tool not from Aomei:

LazeSoft - Aggressive Windows boot repair

Windows XP/Vista/7/8/10/11 x32x64 supported

admin · February 27

@AudioMan612, Please boot into WinPE and take a screenshot of disk management so that we check the status of your partitions.

Merging Unused Recovery Partition Resulted in Being Unable to Boot Windows 10

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