You may be used to Windows automatically changing the name of an external hard drive or USB drive, but what happens when a recovery partition that was supposed to be used in an emergency suddenly becomes a writeable drive with a separate drive letter?

This article will guide you how to restore the recovery partition to its original state.

Unseen friends

If you find that the recovery partition suddenly behaves abnormally and no longer performs its original duties, you may be confused. Windows automatically creates a recovery partition to restore the operating system to its previous normal state (or factory settings) if there is a serious system problem. This partition contains the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE).

This is a very useful partition. As shown in the above image, it is usually at the end of the main hard drive, immediately following the EFI partition. In normal disk configuration, only the primary partition will be assigned a disk letter.

But what should I do when this rule is broken?

What to do when Windows 11 keeps allocating drive letters for recovery partitions

If the recovery partition suddenly has a drive letter and appears in File Explorer, it is likely due to the loss of hidden attributes. The partition is no longer hidden or not mounted. It is also possible that the system update or disk cloning operation has modified the metadata of the hard disk. The data in this partition is crucial and must not be overwritten or deleted. Let’s take a look at several solutions below.

Remove the drive letter from the command prompt

Command Prompt is a versatile tool. Today we will use it to remove the drive letter of the recovery partition. The operation steps are as follows:

Step 1 : Open the "Run" dialog box (Win R), enter "cmd", and press (Ctrl Shift Enter) to run as administrator.

Step 2 : Enter "reagentc /info" and press "Enter" to view the status and location of WinRE. If the partition location ("Windows RE Location:") shows the drive letter rather than the partition number, it needs to be repaired.

Step 3 : Enter "diskpart" in the command prompt and start the DiskPart tool.

Step 4 : Enter "list volume" to view all volumes on the current computer.

Step 5 : If you see the recovery partition listed in it with a drive letter, enter "select volume [number]" to select the volume.

Step 6 : Enter "remove letter" to remove the drive letter of the partition.

If you cannot see the recovery partition at the volume level, you need to go deep into the partition level:

Step 1 : Enter "list disk" in DiskPart and press "Enter".

Step 2 : Enter "select disk [number]" to select the disk containing the partition.

Step 3 : Enter "list partition" to view all partitions.

Step 4 : Find the partition marked "recovery" in the "Type" column. If there is a drive letter, enter "remove letter" to remove it.

Hide drive

If you find that the recovery partition appears repeatedly, it is recommended to hide it in case the file is miswritten. Here is how to hide using the command prompt:

Step 1 : Enter "diskpart" in the command prompt to start the tool.

Step 2 : Select the target partition (as described above), and enter "set>

Step 3 : Enter "gpt attributes=0x800000000000000001" and set the recovery partition to hidden and read-only.

Step 4 : Once completed, the partition will no longer appear in File Explorer.

Uninstall the drive

You can also hide the drive by uninstalling it. The method is as follows:

Step 1 : Open the command prompt, enter "mountvol [Drive Letter]: /d" and press "Enter".

Step 2 : Check if the drive has disappeared from File Explorer.

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