When you install Windows on a drive it creates different partitions, one for the boot, another for the data and another for the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE).
The WinRE partition usually is the last one on your drive, so if you clone your disk to another bigger, to expand the data partition you will be required to delete the existing WinRE partition.
Following the next steps you will be able to recreate it.
Open a command prompt as an Administrator and run carefully as some command might be different on your computer.
First, check the WinRE status to check if it's enabled.
reagentc /info
Windows RE status: Enabled
If it's enabled we should disable it.
reagentc /disable
Now, using the DiskPart utility we're going to create a delete the partition where WinRE is located.
diskpart
Now, we should find the disk where Windows is installed.
list disk
Núm Disco Estado Tamaño Disp Din Gpt
---------- ---------- ------- ------- --- ---
Disco 0 En línea 953 GB 0 B *
And we select it.
select disk 0
El disco 0 es ahora el disco seleccionado.
Next, we should find the WinRE partition.
list partition
Núm Partición Tipo Tamaño Desplazamiento
------------- ---------------- ------- ---------------
Partición 1 Sistema 100 MB 1024 KB
Partición 2 Reservado 16 MB 101 MB
Partición 3 Principal 952 GB 117 MB
Partición 4 Recuperación 786 MB 953 GB
And we select it.
select partition 4
La partición 4 es ahora la partición seleccionada.
And we delete it.
delete partition override
Keep in mind you should leave at least 250 MB available to recreate the WinRE partition.
If you want to expand your data partition, you can do it now, once you're ready to go follow the next steps.
To recreate the WinRE partition we will use the DiskPart utility again.
diskpart
We list the available disks. Note the asterisk character * at the GPT column, some steps differ if your drive is GPT or MBR.
If your drive has the asterisk character, your drive is GPT. Otherwise, your drive is MBR.
list disk
Núm Disco Estado Tamaño Disp Din Gpt
---------- ---------- ------- ------- --- ---
Disco 0 En línea 953 GB 0 B *
And we select it.
select disk 0
El disco 0 es ahora el disco seleccionado.
Next, we create the partition.
create partition primary id=de94bba4-06d1-4d40-a16a-bfd50179d6ac
gpt attributes =0x8000000000000001
create partition primary id=27
Now, we format the newly created partition.
format quick fs=ntfs label="Windows RE tools"
set id=27
We've created the WinRE partition, you can check it running:
list partition
We can now exit the DiskPart utility.
exit
Now, we should re-enable WinRE.
reagentc /enable
To confirm it has successfully re-enabled, run:
reagentc /info
Windows RE status: Enabled