The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Win 8.1 Install On PC and Laptop, Different Partitions?

    Discussion in 'Windows OS and Software' started by tackyjan, Nov 1, 2014.

  1. tackyjan

    tackyjan Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    25
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Hello All,

    I have 2 computers: a custom build PC with MSI uATX motherboard and an ASUS N550JK laptop. Both of these computers have the same exact hard drive, a Samsung 840 Pro 256 GB SSD.

    Last night I installed fresh versions of Windows 8.1 Pro on both machines. During setup I deleted all prior partitions and then proceeded with the install (skipping the option to create a new partition prior to proceeding and just letting Windows do it during the install).

    I looked at the partitions for both computers and for some reason the PC has 2 partitions: System Reserved and
    OS. My laptop has 3: Recovery, EFI, and OS.

    pc_os_partitions.png n550jk_os_partitions.png

    Can someone please tell me why the partitions differ? Does it have to do with the hardware? More specifically, is there something in the ASUS BIOS/firmware that stores a recovery image that Windows finds and uses?

    Thank you,

    Jan
     
    tackyjan, Nov 1, 2014
    #1
  2. S.SubZero

    S.SubZero Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    467
    Messages:
    1,348
    Likes Received:
    121
    Trophy Points:
    81
    The PC was booted in BIOS mode and installed Windows with an MBR partition table.
    The laptop was booted in UEFI mode and installed Windows with a GPT partition table.
     
    S.SubZero, Nov 1, 2014
    #2