What is the role of Win8 GPT disk partitions?

With the large number of pre-installed Win8 computers coming to market, there are more and more people using Win8 systems. But for Win8, the user still lacks sufficient understanding. The following small series will explain the role of each partition in the disk of the GPT partition structure of Win8 system.

By default, when we installed Windows 8 in the GPT, and use the Windows Installer to repartition the hard disk will create these partitions: recovery partition, EFI system partition, MSR Reserved partition, Windows Install the partition.

Let's briefly talk about the role of these partitions:

The first recovery partition is the partition that holds the WinRE image. This partition is created by default only when Windows 8 is installed. WinRE is the abbreviation of Windows Recovery Environment, which includes system restore point restore, system image recovery, system refresh, system reset and other functions. . It also automatically fails over to WinRE when the Windows 8 system fails to boot properly.

In Windows 7, WinRE and Windows installation partitions are in the same partition and are not taken out separately. In Win8, Microsoft separates the WinRE and Windows installation partitions by default. The purpose should be to ensure the reliability of WinRE to the greatest extent. When installing Windows 8 on the MBR hard disk, you will find that the size of the system reserved partition is expanded from 100MB in Win7 to 350MB. This extra space is used to save the WinRE image.

The second partition is the partition that holds the system boot files, which is the partition necessary to implement UEFI boot.

The third MSR partition, which is Microsoft's reserved partition, is not yet clear about its specific role. It is known that converting a basic disk to a dynamic disk is the partition that will work.

The fourth is the target partition we choose to install the system. Its actual capacity = the capacity you specify - the capacity of the first few partitions.

If only the normal startup of the system is considered, then the EFI system partition (second) and the Windows installation partition (fourth partition) are required.

Pre-installed Windows 8 brand machine default partition (take Lenovo model as an example)

In the pre-installed Win8 brand machine, you will also see the partitions shown in the above table. However, the size may vary and you may also see other hidden partitions. This is the default partition of a Lenovo model pre-installed Win8 computer: recovery partition (WinRE), EFI system partition, MSR reserved partition, OEM partition, Windows installation partition, recovery partition (system backup).

Compared with the normal installation, the extra partition in the pre-installed system is used for one-click recovery of brand machines. The OEM partition is used to store the one-click recovery tool, while the larger recovery partition is used to store the system backup image.

I believe that many users are the first to hear about how the partitions of the G8 partition structure disk of the Win8 system are divided and how they function. I hope that the above brief introduction of these special partitions under the Win8 system can help users to further penetrate. Learn about the Win8 system.