Windows 10 loads of partitions?

[mikerr]

The system is actually working fine, but noticed it had changed from a 32GB C drive to 21GB, so I took a look in disk management:


any idea what's caused that ?

[smargh]

I'd expect something horribly broken (BIOS update tool?) or a poorly written malicious app, i.e. a rootkit repeatedly trying to create a hidden partition to store itself & collected data.

I can't think of any other scenario where multiple partitions of various sizes would be created.
Not by Windows - they would probably be the same size.
BIOS update, or manufacturer "recovery partition" systems would generally create partitions of a consistent size.
Maybe a bug in the way Windows displays partition info?

Quite odd. Check for malware. Use the evaluation version of Winhex to manually browse the partitions to see what they might contain, but that might just show old data.

First task: take backups.

[kalniel]

Wow. Slight mal/crytoware risk I guess.. this wasn't an upgrade related outcome was it?

In either case this is one of the rare occasions I'd be seeking out MS support.

[mikerr]

Wow. Slight mal/crytoware risk I guess.. this wasn't an upgrade related outcome was it?

Actually it was shortly after windows had done some large updates (it had been on the "getting ready" screen for a long while).
I think the culprit is win10, but might nuke it and fresh install to be sure.

[stevie lee]

just fyi, checked in my disk management. the win 10 recovery partition is 500mb. free space 179mb thats from a clean win 10 install.
the reserved space is also before the actual C partition.
when it was an upgrade version, there was a 100mb recovery for win 7 and then another 500mb for win 10's.

so you can check afterwards whats supposed to be there or not

yours looks royally messed up.
before nuking i'd be tempted to just delete all the unused partitions just to see what happens.

[wazzickle]

I say go to defcon IV