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On my Lenovo H50-55 Desktop Computer, I see the following partitions in Disk Management:

Lenovo Partitions (Click on the picture to see the image enlarged)

I wish to reinstall a fresh copy of Windows 10 Home x64, which is what the PC shipped with but I am slightly confused as to which partitions I need to wipe, keep or delete as I cannot identify the identity and uses of all the partitions.

I do not wish to use Lenovo OneKey recovery as this does not leave a fresh Windows installation but one with lots of Lenovo pre-installed software. I would however like to keep this for potential future use, provided this does not interfere with the installation by installing software onto the fresh installation.

I believe the partitions labelled 'Recovery Partition' are related to OneKey Recovery but it is not clear to me what the 'EFI System Partition' or 'OEM Partition' are. The 'Windows' partition is clearly the C drive.

I have created install media but do not have a product key. Apparently, the PC should automatically activate when reinstalling provided the edition of Windows 10 is kept the same.

I cannot see the System Reserved partition in Disk Management but it is my understanding that although this partition is not necessary, Windows installations usually have one.

My questions are:

  • Does the PC have a Windows System Reserved partition?
  • How do I achieve a fresh, automatically-activated installation of Windows 10?

This question seems to be similar to my own one, as is this one but the partition layout is a little different and the questions do not seem to deal with reinstalling Windows.

When I open Lenovo Rescue System, which seems to be another name for OneKey Recovery in order to try and create recovery media, I am presented with the following. I'm not quite sure what to do from here.

Lenovo Rescue System

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  • Do not remove the efi partition, only partition to delete during install is the old C partition, then install W10 to that partition.
    – Moab
    Commented Dec 27, 2015 at 15:46
  • I'm looking to get my hard disk into a bit more order and trying to avoid left over files but I will restore using recovery and then reinstall by just removing the C one if the solution below fails
    – LJD200
    Commented Dec 27, 2015 at 18:36

1 Answer 1

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I agree that Lenovo ships a lot of software that is unnecessary, and that a fresh install of Windows is best.

As always, Step ONE is to make sure you have good backups.

STEP 1: BACKUP

Does you Lenovo computer have an option to make restore media? All the Lenovo computers that I have seen let you make recovery media on either DVD's or CD's. The current program that Lenovo uses to create restore media is called OneKey; use the backup option to create restore media.

There are other programs that do partition image backups such as CloneZilla, Macrium, DriveImageXML, Paragon, and Easeus, spring to mind, but there are others.

Once you have a good backup, or three, then you are ready to proceed to the next step. (The point of backups is to get you back to where you started from, without loosing any data.

STEP 2: REMOVE OLD PARTITIONS [1]

This step is destructive, so be sure you have good backups [1].

At the very least you need to remove the Windows System Partition, but there are other partitions, for example the EFI, Recovery, System Reserved partions. If you have done a full image backup, then you should be completely safe to delete all of these partitions. I generally want a completely fresh install of Windows, so I delete them all. I do the partitioning during the Windows install process, but you can also use other tools.

In my experience, Windows 7, 8, and 10 has always created a new EFI partition.

Once you have removed the old partitions, you can now do a clean install of Windows 10.

Windows 10 should reactivate just fine as you already have activated it on that computer.

  • [1]: When doing major operations like Operating System reloads, I generally just purchase a replacement hard drive. That way I have the old one as my backup :).
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  • This Lenovo webpage forums.lenovo.com/t5/Welcome-FAQs-Knowledge-Base/… indicates that you can use Onekey to create recover media.
    – David
    Commented Dec 27, 2015 at 13:06
  • Thanks for the answer. I've updated the question with additional information about trying to create recovery media. Is it safe to wipe even the EFI partition? I've read on various sites that deleting this removes the PC's ability to boot.
    – LJD200
    Commented Dec 27, 2015 at 13:10
  • The system backup should be able to make your recovery media. My advice, though, is to do what I do, which is to open your computer and replace the hard drive with a new (blank) one. That way, if the install does not work, then all you have to do is just put your 'old' hard drive back into your computer, and everything is as it was before. As for the EFI partitions, from my experience is that Windows just creates new ones.
    – David
    Commented Dec 27, 2015 at 16:44
  • Unfortunately, I do not have another hard disk I can use but I've backed up the current hard disk using Clonezilla and I will remove everything but the recovery partitions. Thanks for the help. I'll report back with the results.
    – LJD200
    Commented Dec 27, 2015 at 18:35
  • I deleted all the partitions except the Lenovo recovery and OEM ones in Windows Setup. There was also a Microsoft System Reserved partition that wasn't listed in Disk Management. I also deleted this and then told Windows to install in the unallocated space, which it did. The whole operation went very smoothly.
    – LJD200
    Commented Dec 29, 2015 at 13:14

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