Can't get rid of accidental Windows Backup setup

teckneeculler · 08 Aug 2015

I don't use Windows Backup - never have and never will - but I accidentally hit 'Use This Drive For Backup' when loading a USB-connected hard drive, and even though I hit 'Cancel', it didn't appear to stop the process.

Now, every time I plug in this hard drive, Windows reports that I have an additional drive loaded, called 'G:[RECOVERY]'. When I open this cuckoo, it shows various files and folders that the backup process must have created. .

Also, this recovery folder is hidden, as there's no sign of it when I open the main drive folder, currently labeled 'F'.

How can I get shot of this unwanted process?

Thanks

rvcjew · 08 Aug 2015

When plugged in does it show anything about it in backup and restore? It will say something like this drive connected and this many backups on it, I have never had restore make a second partition on a hdd, it just makes an image that it stores in a folder on the drive. Can you post a shot of the drive in disk management?

derekimo · 08 Aug 2015

You could try resetting windows backup to it's default and see if it helps,

Backup User and System Files - Reset to Default Configuration

teckneeculler · 09 Aug 2015

Guys, thanks for your responses. According to Control Panel\Backup and Restore, Windows Backup has never been set up.

But I think I know what happened here. This 320GB hard drive came out of an HP14 laptop I bought for myself. I'm a PC tech and had no desire to use the Windows 8 that was loaded on it, so I switched the drive for a spare and installed Windows 7.

A couple of days ago I decided to use the 320GB drive for movie storage, so I formatted it using Windows own formatter, i.e., right-click>format. It took a couple of hours to empty and rename, but it seemed to be clean so I started using it for storage (mounted in a BlacX HDD dock). I think what must happened was that the format process had been unable to dispose of the Recovery partition and it resurfaced soon after I started using the drive.

Anyway, I've now emptied the partition by formatting it and all the files have gone, but it's still hogging 18GB of space so I might as well delete the partition entirely. However, W7's Computer Management\Disk Management doesn't offer an option to delete this partition (it's labeled RECOVERY (G 18.9GB NTFS Healthy (OEM Partition))

What do you reckon is the easiest way to dump it?

rvcjew · 10 Aug 2015

teckneeculler said:

Guys, thanks for your responses. According to Control Panel\Backup and Restore, Windows Backup has never been set up.

But I think I know what happened here. This 320GB hard drive came out of an HP14 laptop I bought for myself. I'm a PC tech and had no desire to use the Windows 8 that was loaded on it, so I switched the drive for a spare and installed Windows 7.

A couple of days ago I decided to use the 320GB drive for movie storage, so I formatted it using Windows own formatter, i.e., right-click>format. It took a couple of hours to empty and rename, but it seemed to be clean so I started using it for storage (mounted in a BlacX HDD dock). I think what must happened was that the format process had been unable to dispose of the Recovery partition and it resurfaced soon after I started using the drive.

Anyway, I've now emptied the partition by formatting it and all the files have gone, but it's still hogging 18GB of space so I might as well delete the partition entirely. However, W7's Computer Management\Disk Management doesn't offer an option to delete this partition (it's labeled RECOVERY (G 18.9GB NTFS Healthy (OEM Partition))

What do you reckon is the easiest way to dump it?

MAKE SURE YOU PICK THE RIGHT DISK
Open a elevated command prompt then use:

diskpart

List disk (find the disk number Make sure it's right)

Select disk X (x being the number)

List part (to make sure it's the right disk selected)

Clean

Exit

Exit

Then in disk management it was ask you to format the disk after picking gpt or mbr.

teckneeculler · 10 Aug 2015

Yes, I thought that would work, too. But after doing the routine, Disk Management shows a main partition of around 278GB, plus two unallocated partitions. One is 789MB and the other 18.9GB.

rvcjew · 10 Aug 2015

teckneeculler said:

Yes, I thought that would work, too. But after doing the routine, Disk Management shows a main partition of around 278GB, plus two unallocated partitions. One is 789MB and the other 18.9GB.

Odd normally it will wipe all of it, try MiniTool Free Partition Manager for Window 8/7/vista/xp | Partition Wizard Free Edition and then delete all of them and make one big one with it.

teckneeculler · 10 Aug 2015

Uh, yes, that would be the sensible approach. Only thing (that I forgot to mention) is that there's already 140GB of files in the main partition, and I'd prefer not to have to recopy all that stuff.

I ran a trial demo of EaseUS Partition Master (which won't actually do the full business but does the lead-up) and it seems likely that this app or some other will probably combine the three partitions while Windows is running. I may even have a bootable partition manager somewhere in my software collection.

Either way, I'm sure I'll get it sorted. Thanks for your help, guys.

rvcjew · 10 Aug 2015

Yeah it can in expand it into unallocated space but I would backup your data first if you can somewhere just in case. If you use it to just make blank unallocated space of the other partitions then I think disk management in windows will let you expand the existing into the unallocated as well.

teckneeculler · 12 Aug 2015

Thanks, rcvjew. All sorted now. Fixed it with a full version of EaseUS Partition Master 10.5. Combined the 3 partitions into one without a hitch. Took a while, though - 4 or 5 hours. I thought it would just amend the Windows bookkeeping, to make the 3 parts look like one. But it must have totally rearranged and rewritten all the files. All done now, though.
Cheers