akadeadhead

Assuming you are running Windows 10 on a machine with a UEFI Bios, you will always have at least 3 partitions and, if this is a migrated drive from another machine, having more than 3 partitions is not at all surprising. If you are cloning this drive and plan to have the clone be a boot drive, do not unclick and of the partitions.

chrissybabe Loc: New Zealand

My drives had 3 partitions - I have never seen one with 5. One of the readers might be right as to how you ended up with 5 but if he is right then you are overdue for an OS reload to clean everything up. Now Windows creates usually 3 partitions one of which is used for encryption (NB I think that is what it is used for). Since only about .001% of users might use encryption Microsoft has forced the rest of the world to put up with this crap of an extra drive.
However Macrium has an option showing in the left hand pane of making an image of the C: drive partition(s) required to backup and restore Windows. I always use this especially when increasing the size of the system drive (eg from 250GB to 500GB SSDs). It works fine and the restore leaves just a single partition using all the drive.
I have used Acronis, Storagecraft and Macrium over the last 15 years. My experience has varied with them all but Macrium is the only one that has worked every time. Both Acronis and Storagecraft have, at various times, failed to easily restore often after bringing out updates that have led me through the hoops trying to get them to work. At one stage I always had to run Macrium last to get the drives to boot so eventually I just swapped entirely to Macrium and never looked back.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

As I said above, a How-To video showed exactly the same arrangement for the C drive of the computer being demonstrated. Below is what Disk Management shows after installing a fresh copy of Windows 10 from the original disk. Apparently, that's what Windows wants to do. Looking at it through the "This PC" icon, all I see is the partition with the OS and programs.

An aside: You wrote "(NB I think that is what it is used for)". A couple of months ago, there was an LED sign by a local highway, "NB Route 209 will be closed on Monday." It thought it was unusual to have NB (nota bene) on the sign. A couple of days later, I realized it meant "North Bound." I was over-thinking it.

nadelewitz Loc: Ithaca NY

If your computer is capable of using UEFI Boot (as has been the case for some years now), and the BIOS is set accordingly (rather than Legacy Boot) by you, Dell, HP etc, the Windows installation creates four partitions on the hard drive (or SSD)....one is the C: partition, the others are real small and are part of what makes it boot. You don't see them from within Windows File manager, but a drive partitioning program or a drive backup program DOES see them.

If you are backing up your drive to an image that can be used to restore a new drive, do a WHOLE DRIVE BACKUP, not just a backup of the C: partition. Without the other little partitions, the computer will not be bootable.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

I guess Win 10 lets you see what it wants you to see.

Verrrrrrrrry Interesting. But invisible.

nadelewitz Loc: Ithaca NY

There are a lot of things that are hidden from normal view in Windows, and MacOS and Linux too. They all have the ability to show hidden files and folders and protected system files. They are all hidden because tampering with them can cripple your operating system.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

This is true.

But sometimes one needs to know what is hidden when a directory will not delete. Like thumbs.db.

nadelewitz Loc: Ithaca NY

So? If you want to view hidden files/folders, do it. Do you not know how to enable the option?

Hal81 Loc: Bucks County, Pa.

Well Ill be dipped in a bucket of sour owl poop, I didn.t know that.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Most certainly.
I have display hidden & system files on.

nadelewitz Loc: Ithaca NY

Is there a question here?

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

No, you asked the question and I answered it.

nadelewitz Loc: Ithaca NY

I don't even know what question you are asking or answering anymore. Goodbye.