ASUS G752VS Recovery Partition really necessary?

[The_Cool_Dude]

Hello.

I'm about to reinstall Windows 10 on my G752VS that I've had for a week. I'm having all sorts of strange issues that a reboot always seems to fix but I'm rebooting every day. I know... First world problems...

Since I've had my laptop, I've uninstalled the bloat ware ASUS included and updated Windows 10 to the Windows 10 Anniversary edition. I've discovered that the ASUS Backtracker software does not work on Windows 10 (to backup the recovery partitions) and it won't even let me install it. In getting ready to reinstall Windows 10, I've discovered that booting pressing F9 does not work to bring me to the ASUS recovery (not sure if this worked before or not as I never tried until now). Yes the ASUS recovery partition is still on my SSD, but I'm wondering....

Is there any real advantage to keeping the ASUS Recovery partitions as opposed to just Installing Windows 10 as a clean install and wiping out the Recovery partition? I honestly don't see anything of value with the recovery partition other than the folder with all the drivers and utilities (which can also be easily downloaded from the website and installed as necessary).

With my other past ASUS Laptops that I've owned, I've always just wiped everything from the drive and did a clean install of Windows starting fresh and never gave the recovery partitions a second thought.

This thread which is a Sticky seems to back up my thoughts but doesn't really discuss the recovery partitions at all but indirectly says to delete ALL partitions: https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?76993-Guide-How-to-install-windows-8-8-1-10-The-proper-way...

Am I missing anything of value in the recovery partition if I delete them? I personally don't think so but I just wanted to see what others thought about this.

Thanks in advance!

[The_Cool_Dude]

Hello again.

Just wanted to post back as a follow up to my Windows 10 Pro install on my G752VS with my Samsung 950 Pro 512G.

The install went very smooth. Windows 10 Pro was installed in 8 minutes! Here are my partitions in case anyone was curious.



There were only a couple of slight hikkups.

1. Had to change the SATA mode in the BIOS from RAID to AHCI to be able to see the drive before I could delete the partitions and install Windows 10 Pro.

2. When installing the Audio driver, it went into a unending loop of uninstalling the default audio driver, reboot, installing the new audio driver, and reboot. It did this about 6 times before I had enough and hit cancel. Fortunately, my Audio is working just fine. Also, the Sonic Studio 2 is not installed with the Audio Driver. It is a separate install. Fortunately I saved the eSupport folder that came on my C: drive from the factory before I wiped my partitions and it was in there with all the other drivers and utilities. I haven't found where to download this yet though if I ever lost this but I'm good for now.

As to how things are working... I'd say pretty good at this point but it's too soon to tell. I'll give it a few days and see how it goes and play some games.

Thanks again for everyone's help.

[JustinThyme]

Personally I leave the recovery, I don't condone clean installs, wast of time IMO. My offer for anyone to prove they can outperform my updated versions with recovery still intact with a clean install still has no takers.

Now for a MAJOR problem with the above picture, you have ZERO over provisioning on an SSD. This spells certain disaster! You should have 10% of that drive unallocated!
It has to have extra for trim to heal itself.

Note my SSDs

[The_Cool_Dude]

Hi JustinThyme.

Thanks for your post. I appreciate your feedback.

The screenshots that I took were all (with the exception of the photo of the Windows 10 Setup showing additional partitions) from the Windows 10 Disk Management utility which does not show MSR partitions, if that is what you are referring to. I'm sure the MSR Partition is actually there as I used the UEFI/GPT installation steps but I'll have a look with diskpart when I get home to make sure.

In my case, if the recovery partition was even there, it wasn't working at all. Pressing F9 at boot did nothing. Plus, no one could tell me what benefits there were to trying to save it. I already had the "esupport" folder with all the factory drivers/utilities backed up. I could however go into the Windows 10 recovery options and use Reset this PC however I choose to clean install with a USB key instead which is not a big deal.

I had Windows 10 reinstalled in 8 minutes from the deletion of all the partitions back to the desktop. Reinstalling the drivers/utilities took about 30 minutes after that, mainly because I was taking my time. Then Windows updates... Then reinstalling my games. Keep in mind that most of this would have to have been done anyway even if I had used the Reset this PC option.

Everything, so far, is running very well now.

Like I said, when I get home from work, I'll have a look using diskpart to ensure the MSR is there.

[The_Cool_Dude]

Hello again.

Looks like all the partitions are there and I'm in good shape.



Thanks again.