How to remove a partition mapping in Windows

Question

I cloned my system disk to a larger one. Then I removed the original disk. Remaining is the new disk that has the 3 Windows-created partitions (Recovery, EFI System, Windows OS C: - windows 10)

For some reason Recovery partition is mapped to drive F: in explorer.exe, but the same mapping does not exist if I go to Disk management. In fact, right-clicking the partition in Disk Management displays a popup with only the "Delete partition" option enabled, all other options are grayed out. Right-clicking the same partition in explorer.exe hangs explorer.exe.

How can I remove this unwanted mapping?

Answer 1

I guess it's not mapped but erroniously got "assigned" a drive letter.
I'd very carefully examine the partition with diskpart as an administrator.

[Win]+R diskpart [ctrl]+[shift]+[return]

At this point you might change the font/color for the cmd window.
At the "DISKPART>" prompt start with :

list disk

identify the right disk (presumably 0) and select with:

select disk 0
list partition
list volume

identify the right volume number , select it (replace x) and try to remove the Letter with:

Select Volume x
Remove Letter=F

You should try to examine the attributes for this volume, this doesn't work always (here it didn't also) with:

attributes volume

Nevertheless I'd try to set the attributes HIDDEN and NODEFAULTDRIVELETTER with:

attributes volume set HIDDEN
attributes volume set NODEFAULTDRIVELETTER

If this worked so far I'd reboot and see what happens. Again be very carefully repeating these steps - I'll take no responsility for any errors you make.