Windows 8.1 - Why are there multiple recovery partitions in the system?

Solution 1:

It looks like every major windows OS upgrade creates a recovery partition. After upgrading my system to windows 10, I have yet another recovery partition.

It is relatively simple to figure out which recovery partition was created by the latest OS upgrade. Imagine the storage to be linear. The new recovery partition is created by shrinking C: from the right hand side. So if you open up the disk management console, the new recovery partition would be immediately to the right of C: volume.

Applying this to the question above, partition 6 is the current recovery partition. Partitions 4 and 7 are from the first Windows 8 factory install with partition 7 being the OEM recovery partition for the Windows 8 factory reset feature.

Source: http://www.disk-partition.com/windows-10/recovery-partition-after-upgrading-to-windows-10-4348.html