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August 18th, 2022 11:00
System Reapir Not Using Recovery Partition
Dell G15 5515 Ryzen Edition
Hello, thanks for stopping by!
My computer has a 256 Gb SSD with approx. 18 Gb partioned out for system recovery. Windows seems able to access this partition, but the Dell SupportAssist System Repair is not.
This is a problem because I want to create a system backup through Dell using that reserved space, but instead it saves to my personal partition. Even if I made a backup through the default Windows system, Dell still takes a minimum of 12 Gb of space on the 218 Gb reserved for personal files- a quite significant chunk that I would like to conserve.
Any suggestions on how to make System Repair utilize the space reserved for it?
Thank you in advance!
Edit:
Here's an image of the settings screen in the SupportAssist menu.
It looks like the System Repair can be disabled, but I'm not sure if I should disable it or not.
lmacri
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1.6K Posts
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August 18th, 2022 14:00
Hi A.C.R.O.N.Y.M:
What is your Windows operating system? If Win 10 or Win 11 please include your Edition (Home or Pro), version and build shown at Settings | System | About | Windows Specifications.
The restore points created by Windows System Restore (which is disabled by default in Win 10 and Win 11) are created in a hidden, protected folder at C:\System Volume Information. That folder is reserved for Windows System Restore and cannot be used by Dell's System Repair (also known as Dell SupportAssist Remediation or SupportAssist OS Recovery).
If System Repair is enabled in your SupportAssist settings the Dell system repair points (snapshots) are stored in a separate hidden, protected folder at C:\ProgramData\Dell\SARemediation\SystemRepair\. See SteveTree's June 2021 thread Reduce Disk Space Used by SARemediation for more information. I currently have System Repair disabled, but when this feature was still enabled I used a utility called TreeSize Free to capture the May 2021 screenshot shown below. As far as I know there is no way to change the default folder where Dell system repair points are stored. Note: If you can't see hidden, protected folders in TreeSize make sure you show hidden files in File Explorer (View | Hidden Items | ENABLED) before running TreeSize, and run TreeSize with Administrator rights (Options | Start as Administrator | Always Start This Application as Administrator | ENABLED).
See my 10-Aug-2022 post in Ahsan Samsun's To Install SupportAssist Remediation Back which explains the basic features of Dell SupportAssist Remediation and why I've disabled System Repair on my Inspiron 5584. I prefer to use Macrium Reflect Free imaging software to create emergency rescue media (a bootable USB thumb drive) and the occasional full disk image of my hard that I store on an external backup drive in case I have to perform an emergency recovery of my system. As an extra precaution I've also enabled Windows System Restore (disabled by default on Win 10 and Win 11) as instructed in the Windows Central article How to Use System Restore on Windows 10.
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64-bit Win 10 Pro v21H2 build 19044.1889 * Firefox v103.0.2 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.2205.7-1.1.19500.2 * Malwarebytes Premium v4.5.13.208-1.0.1740 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.6867 * Dell SupportAssist v3.11.4.29 * Dell Update Windows Universal v4.6.0 * Dell SupportAssist Remediation v5.5.3.16171 * TreeSize Free Portable v4.5.3 * Inspiron 5583/5584 BIOS v1.20.0
Dell Inspiron 15 5584, Intel i5-8265U CPU, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB Toshiba KBG40ZNS256G NVMe SSD, Intel UHD Graphics 620