[SOLVED] System Reserved Partition Too Small

After installing a SSD and cloning my old HDD, my system reserved partition is only 31MB, and I can't install the latest Windows 10 Pro update. I get the error message "We couldn't update the System Reserved Partition". Below is a screenshot of my Disk Management screen.

View: https://imgur.com/a/N2tmjEl


I found a similar thread on Tom's and I think it contains the solution, but I am unsure about one step. Here is the response in the thread:

Posted by SkyNetRising on Jan 2, 2020, in a thread entitled “I cannot install system updates after swapping to an SSD”

45MB for a bootloader partition is too small.
Is your old HDD still available? You could redo cloning with larger bootloader partition (500MB).

Alternatively you could create a new bootloader partition manually.
BTW - is that 12GB unallocated space left there intentionally?

Anyway -
delete 453 MB recovery partition first,
then create a new bootloader partition 500mb,
set it active,
format to ntfs,
create bootloader files on it,
test, if it boots properly,
then delete 45MB old bootloader partition.

To do that, execute from elevated command prompt. Regular command prompt will give error on last command.
(https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/how-to-open-a-windows-10-elevated-command-prompt/ )
diskpart
list disk
select disk 0
list partition
select partition 3

(select 453MB partition)
delete partition override
create partition primary size=500
format fs=ntfs quick
active
assign letter=H
exit
bcdboot C:\windows /s H:


What I don't understand is the statement above "Create bootloader files on it." Is this something covered by the elevated command prompt instructions above, or something different?

Also what changes to the instructions would I need to make based on my Disk Management screenshot?

Thanks for anyone who can help me out. I tried extending the volume using Disk Management, but even after shrinking the 223 GB volume, and creating 350MB of unallocated space, it wouldn't work because the unallocated space was not adjacent to the system reserved volume.
 
Solution
Delete 486MB partition. Create a new partition there.

Execute from elevated command prompt. Regular command prompt will give error on last step.
diskpart
list disk
select disk 0
list partition
select partition 1
(select 486MB partition)​
delete partition override
create partition primary
format fs=ntfs quick
active
assign letter=H
exit
bcdboot c:\windows /s H:
What I don't understand is the statement above "Create bootloader files on it." Is this something covered by the elevated command prompt instructions above, or something different?
Yes this command creates a BCD store and adds all the relevant files.
bcdboot C:\windows /s H:


Just redo the clone making sure to give more space to that partition,chances are you are going to screw something up anyway,even if you do everything correctly you will have to shrink the C partition and move it to the end of the drive which will probably take longer than the cloning would.
 
Yes this command creates a BCD store and adds all the relevant files.
bcdboot C:\windows /s H:


Just redo the clone making sure to give more space to that partition,chances are you are going to screw something up anyway,even if you do everything correctly you will have to shrink the C partition and move it to the end of the drive which will probably take longer than the cloning would.
The old HDD that I originally cloned from when the SSD was installed has been "repurposed" and no longer contains the Windows 10 O/S.
 
Delete 486MB partition. Create a new partition there.

Execute from elevated command prompt. Regular command prompt will give error on last step.
diskpart
list disk
select disk 0
list partition
select partition 1
(select 486MB partition)​
delete partition override
create partition primary
format fs=ntfs quick
active
assign letter=H
exit
bcdboot c:\windows /s H:
 
Solution
Delete 486MB partition. Create a new partition there.

Execute from elevated command prompt. Regular command prompt will give error on last step.
diskpart
list disk
select disk 0
list partition
select partition 1
(select 486MB partition)​
delete partition override
create partition primary
format fs=ntfs quick
active
assign letter=H
exit
bcdboot c:\windows /s H:
Thanks SkyNetRising. I was hoping you would see this post. Should I make the new partition 500MB like you told the other member to do?
 
Do I delete the existing 31MB system reserved partition? If not how will I know if the system is booting from the newly created one?
You will not be able to delete 31MB partition.
You can do that only after you have executed commands listed before and rebooted your pc from newly created partition.

Currently active bootloader partition has word "System" in the description.
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
I used Acronis True Image Home (2009). It must have shrunk the system reserved partition to the size it is now. Prior to doing that I shrunk the old C; partition on the 500GB hard drive to a smaller size so everything would fit onto the new 240GB SSD. I'm thinking I should have chose "backup sector by sector".
hmm....it should not have messed with the size of that partition.
And you shouldn't have had to shrink the actual partition size.
Most modern cloning software only looks at the actual data size, not the partition size.
I know Macrium is like that.

As long as your data was under 200GB, it should have worked.
 
hmm....it should not have messed with the size of that partition.
And you shouldn't have had to shrink the actual partition size.
Most modern cloning software only looks at the actual data size, not the partition size.
I know Macrium is like that.

As long as your data was under 200GB, it should have worked.
Yes the data on the old HDD was way under 200GB when I installed the ssd last fall. I wasn't sure if I needed to shrink the old C: drive partition first. My version of Acronis is pretty old.
 

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