Why do I have a "System Reserved"partition?

Have you recently had a WIndows update fail?

I have not

@Sam It's Win10 playing up again for me. When I tried to remove the drive letter, I found the partition no longer exists. It's no longer visible in Win Explorer, CMD or Disk Management. The normal "System reserved" partition still exists, but that is 500MB, not 0kB, and it does not have a drive letter.

@McKnife I noticed that I have V1803 "awaiting restart". That seems to be the same issue I mentioned in a previous question: some updates do not install, even when Windows says it's updating. As in that last question, I have now noticed 2 consecutive power-downs with the update message. That implies I will have to force a manual restart. I'll report back after that.

Yep, a restart did it. I now have V1803. As before, a normal "install updates and shut down" did NOT install the update, but a simple "restart" did.. With "restart" it says nothing about updates (but takes a long time); with "install updates and shut down" it says it's installing updates - but doesn't. Win10 just does not like me - and it's mutual

Here's another weird thing. The last couple of power-ups (since V1803 wanted to be installed?) Win10 it has consistently played a tune when the first splash screen appears. It has done that from time to time in the past, but I have NEVER either enabled or disabled it. It's not something I worry about, I just put it down to Win10 being unpredictable.

Is this still About the extra Partition? Then please follow the advice to remove the drive letter. To do that, open diskmgmt.msc, there, you can remove it.

@nobus @noxcho

But in my case it does nothing until I go to Windows Update and restart from there. But, until I do that, "shutdown" is replaced by "install updates and shut down".

@Norie Thinking about it again, would my update problems qualify as an "update failure"?

Here's another weird one I've learned to live with: from time to time the PC switches to English keyboard (we use US keyboard in Australia). It happened when I typed the previous paragraph - I noticed it when " characters became @. Win10 is the only OS that's ever done that to me.

Can anyone explain why the Win10 recovery partition acquired a drive letter, or is this just another case of Win10 doing its own thing, when it feels like it? At least I assume it was the recovery partition, and not some other weird Win10 idea.

@McKnife
As per my earlier post, the drive letter disappeared by itself.

"Can anyone explain why the Win10 recovery partition acquired a drive letter, or is this just another case of Win10 doing its own thing, when it feels like it? At least I assume it was the recovery partition, and not some other weird Win10 idea." - it happens sometimes. I have seen cases when this just happens on one of 50 upgraded machines while there is no obvious difference. Once, it wan't even enough to reove the letter once as it returned on every reboot. Had to create a dispart script which would run on every Restart to remove the letter.

But in my case it does nothing until I go to Windows Update and restart from there. But, until I do that, "shutdown" is replaced by "install updates and shut down".

And that is normal. Starting with Windows 8 Microsoft made some changes to recovery environment of Windows. The blue screen environment (in which you usually see the CHKDSK running at start) was replaced with WinRE (almost same as WinPE). It can save the planned operations which take place with Windows restart and then perform the necessary changes to system files. Which is normally not possible with running Windows.
In case some OEM vendors remove the existing WinRE partition they even made a second copy of this partition at the end of HDD.
Now, Windows 10 Updates are sometimes making big changing to the system and what you see as Update can be what we earlier called Service Pack 1 etc. Or even newer version of Windows. For this case MS makes a copy of Windows folder which is normally called Windows.old
In case something goes wrong they want to have a chance to roll the changes back - guess where would this happen? Yes, in WinRE interface. And there must be some kind of change log saved in WinRE which knows where it should roll back to.
Makes it sense now?

Sort of, I suppose. But I still can't see why a Restart from Windows Update can do things that a Shutdown/Reboot will not. Why does it not tell you what's needed, instead of just pretending to install updates every time you power down?

[b@hdhondt/b], have you ever thought about the IT skill level of The majority of Windows users?  Any kind of question and any kind of messages will generate panic and increase the support calls that Microsoft will get

Sort of, I suppose. But I still can't see why a Restart from Windows Update can do things that a Shutdown/Reboot will not. Why does it not tell you what's needed, instead of just pretending to install updates every time you power down?

Maybe you've changed some settings? Recently my Windows 10 Pro was nerving me with some update which was failing to install. Again and again. Till I press - hide. Then somehow it managed to install it in background. Only MS message - your Windows runs on latest bla bla bla remained me about the updates.
And frankly speaking the warning messages are not good for common user. I get a lot of calls from my friends concerning - hey there is some message, is it virus? Can you have a look? In 99% cases these are Windows update warnings.

@noxcho

I'll try that next time I see a message pop up - but I cannot remember any message about failing installation.

I see your point about user alerts, but again, I don't seem to get any. It's just that, when I want to shut down, I see "install updates & shut down" instead of just "shut down".

In Windows Update settings you can configure if it should show you any additional notification. See my attachment.
Settings.jpg

No comment has been added to this question in more than 21 days, so it is now classified as abandoned.

I have recommended this question be closed as follows:

Split:
-- 'Sam Simon Nasser' (https:#a42561285)
-- 'McKnife' (https:#a42561369)
-- 'noxcho' (https:#a42562211)
-- 'nobus' (https:#a42562173)


If you feel this question should be closed differently, post an objection and the moderators will review all objections and close it as they feel fit. If no one objects, this question will be closed automatically the way described above.

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