"Unable to recover your PC. The system drive is too small."

[LadyA]

Hello, my original hard drive crashed/died, so I just installed a new Samsung 850 EVO SSD (250gb)... and now I'm trying to reinstall (fresh/clean) the OS onto that new blank drive.

I'm trying to use the Windows 10 Home 64-bit recovery thumb drive that I made before the crash happened. I set the boot option to USB, and it boots the thumb drive properly, but then when I select to "recover from drive," I get the error message: "Unable to recover your PC. The system drive is too small."

(I don't think this has anything to do with the issue, but just FYI: when I created the recovery drive, it said that the USB drive just needed to be at least 8gb in size. Well, mine is 16gb, so was plenty of room, and there were no errors or issues with creating the thumb drive.)

This is the first time I've installed a new hard drive and done all this, but I don't think I've done anything wrong yet -- all I did was remove the dead drive and install the new one, and made sure AHCI was selected in the BIOS (it already was).

BIOS recognizes that the new SSD is installed. However, I used the command prompt to see what the size of my C: drive was and it is listing it as if it's the recovery thumb drive (16GB). Does that mean it's telling me the drive is too small because it's trying to install Windows back onto the thumb drive instead of onto the new SSD?

I'm kind of a noob so that might sound dumb... but can anyone help me with this?

Computer is a Dell XPS8500. Let me know if you need any other info.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Ironsounds]

Hello... your SSD has no "Partitions" or format/drive letter yet to read off of it with a DOS command.

Recovery is NOT what you want to use for a " (fresh/clean) the OS onto that new blank drive. "
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKbR6XT7fcA

You basically just plug in the USB and the Windows "Install" screen will Auto start for you.

1) Did you format the USB stick as FAT32 first and make BOOTable?
2) Can you try your same procedure with a 8GB USB2 stick? this is my typical experience of use, and not a having problem with.
3) Try to enable legacy-Both USB option in your MB BIO's (save&exit).
4) enable USB boot order first (save&exit).

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

The "system drive" that the error refers to is the system hard drive, not the pen drive.

It seems to me that the original hard drive you replaced had a larger capacity than the new SSD you replaced it with.
That's why the recovery won't fit on the SSD.

You should have replaced the crashed drive with a new one of at least the same capacity or greater.

 

[LadyA]

Hello... your SSD has no "Partitions" or format/drive letter yet to read off of it with a DOS command.

Recovery is NOT what you want to use for a " (fresh/clean) the OS onto that new blank drive. "

You basically just plug in the USB and the Windows "Install" screen will Auto start for you.

1) Did you format the USB stick as FAT32 first and make BOOTable?
2) Can you try your same procedure with a 4GB USB2 stick? this is my typical experience of use, and not a having problem with.
3) Try to enable legacy-Both USB option in your MB BIO's (save&exit).
4) enable USB boot order first (save&exit).

Oh, thank you! I didn't realize that (big noob).

It says "recover from a drive" ("reinstall Windows from a recovery drive connected to this PC. This will remove all your files and apps"). What does me creating a "recovery drive" prior to the crash do then? I thought it was for reinstalling the OS from scratch?

1) Yes, the USB stick was formatted as FAT32, buuuut I didn't do anything special to "make BOOTable"? The Windows 10 feature didn't say anything about that, it just said to stick your drive in and it would create a recovery drive. Is it just common sense that I should have done something to the thumb drive first, so that's why it didn't tell me to? I would I be able to tell if the USB is BOOTable or not? It runs and opens the blue Windows screen with the troubleshoot options to "recover" or "reset," etc.

2) Yes, I can try again with a 4gb USB drive, but I will have to wait until tomorrow when I can use my mom's PC computer to create one. (I'm on a Chromebook now, so it wouldn't work to download; I already tried, like a dummy, haha.)

Okay, thanks, I will try the Legacy-Both USB option.

 

[LadyA]

The "system drive" that the error refers to is the system hard drive, not the pen drive.

It seems to me that the original hard drive you replaced had a larger capacity than the new SSD you replaced it with.
That's why the recovery won't fit on the SSD.

You should have replaced the crashed drive with a new one of at least the same capacity or greater.

I'm not recovering a disk image or anything though, just reinstalling Windows. And then I will put my files back on from my external back-up drive. So even if I'm just re-installing Windows, I have to match the same size as my old broken drive? It was 2tb HDD and my new one is 250gb SSD.

(PS I edited my last reply a few times because I saw Ironsounds' edits.)

 

[Ironsounds]

Hello... Watch this, and I was wrong about a 4gb USB for WIN10 install... he recommends a 8GB drive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKbR6XT7fcA ( I also updated my instruction set above ) B )
You need fat32 8gb USB2 and make bootable, and DL WIN10 version ISO and use Microsoft USB/DVD tool, to copy it to the USB stick... it's pretty easy.

 

[LadyA]

Thank you for the video... that was what I was expecting, and knew it should be easy, so was disappointed to run into this problem, haha

I created my recovery drive using this method (long before my hard drive crashed): http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10/create-a-recovery-drive.

Is that totally different than using this one? - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO

If they are totally different, then that is my problem. I just need to download from the 2nd URL and try again tomorrow probably.

 

[Ironsounds]

Hello... YES... Recovery is used to "recover-copy" an already working OS and programs From or TO a drive... like a Smaller "Backup" in away.
You want Choice #2 and DL the File/ISO from Microsoft first... Unless you have WIN10 MEDIA already laying around?

 

[LadyA]

Hello... YES... Recovery is used to "recover-copy" an already working OS and programs From or TO a drive... like a Smaller "Backup" in away.
You want Choice #2 and DL the File/ISO from Microsoft first... Unless you have WIN10 MEDIA already laying around?

Aww, crap, lol... I thought I had read online that creating a USB recovery drive could be used to reinstall the OS. Well, that is my problem then! Thank you!! I guess once I download/install the correct one (Windows 10 ISO), then I can use the recovery thumb drive? Maybe it saved all my settings, that would be great.

Oh, nope, I don't have the Windows media CD; mine came pre-installed from Costco.

 

[Ironsounds]

Hello... If you DO Not Want a new OS install? Use the FREE Clone software with your Samsung 850 EVO SSD... "CLONE" will Do a better Job than 'recovery' will do for you B )
Do you want a exact copy of your other drive? it's possible.

 

[LadyA]

I don't mind a new OS install. I would love to just have an exact copy of my other broken drive, but I am actually going to be installing another hard drive (a SSHD hybrid) as a secondary drive for my files/docs/music, etc, this time around. And then my OS and programs will be on the primary drive (the Samsung SSD I just put in).

That makes it harder to clone doesn't it? If I want files split across two drives?

Also, if my original hard drive died, then how will it work to be able to extract the files?

Someone told me to only put the SSD in by itself and then get the OS installed and wait until all the Windows updates are done, before I install the secondary drive.

 

[Ironsounds]

Hello... You can not Clone a Dead drive... it only takes 15-30 minutes to have NEW & Fresh.
I recommend the same thing... Sometimes Windows can be very invasive to other drives during a "fresh install' OR Lock them to the OS... I always wait for the main OS drive to be happy and add MY drives later to the System/network... and it makes it easier to remove them later too B )

 

[LadyA]

Ok, thank you!! Yes, I will be doing new and fresh install then. And will definitely wait before installing the 2nd drive.

Since I only have a Chromebook right now to use, I will have to wait until tomorrow to download the proper ISO file... so I might update the thread to say whether it went smoothly or not.

Thanks again for all your help!

 

[LadyA]

Just following up, everything went great, Windows 10 is back on my computer and the new SSD is running great.

Like we talked about, the problem was simply that I had been using the wrong method to reinstall Windows 10! I feel silly. The Win10 ISO file downloaded online was what I needed, not the "recovery drive" I made using my computer before it died.

 

[sbpetrack]

The Win10 ISO file downloaded online was what I needed, not the "recovery drive" I made using my computer before it died.

[Edit: perhaps I was being stupid in a different way - when the error is "the system drive is too small", could it be that the recovery code is trying to copy a fresh set of windows files to the active system partition? This would definitely fail, because my active system partition is only 200MB. All the windows files are of course in the next partition - - the Boot partition, which has 200GB and is my C: drive. I suppose it's possible that system partition on the new drive is a tiny bit smaller that the system partition in the old drive, just because of rounding errors. Making that even 1 byte larger will require me to move the 200gb boot partition though. I ugh]

I apologize, but this "solution" makes absolutely no sense to me at all; in particular please help me understand the following aspects of the "solution":

As a context: i have a Lenovo C325 running Win 10. It is slow to the point of being unusable; I have a spare Samsung 830 SSD (250G) and want to replace the original 500GB bricks-and-mortar hard-drive. NB: The very first step I took was to shrink the boot partition (whose sole volume is MY NTFS C: drive) down to 190GB. The only other partition on the C325`s disk is the Fat32 200MB Active system partition (with the bcd on it).

I tried to use the Samsung migration software (Lord knows how hard I tried !!!!) but I never got it to recognise the presence of the Samsung hard-drive.

So I made a (USB) Recovery drive and intended to use that to install onto the SSD.

I ran into the "cannot recover; system drive to small" issue:

The "solution" given above seems to imply thst I can only recover onto a hard-drive>=500Gb. Is that true even if the combined total allocated space is less than the new drive I wish to use? That seems simply ridiculous to me. The recovery drive knows how large the ambient disk was that contained the original C: drive, and refuses to install onto a physically smaller drive?!?!?! My cousins in Nassau County would call that "retarded," i believe. Surely many people run into emergencies and they have a disk lying around that's big enough, but not nearly the size of the original disk. Indeed, I had to transfer 50GB of data to a backup in order to be able to shrink the C: partition to less than 200GB. That was a stupid waste of time on my part? Thanks to any one who can explain to me.

2.Also, even though I just wanted to get a new OS install onto the new disk, I think (or thought) I wanted a recovery install!! Why? Because that would produce an installation with the same custom partition scheme as I had. And because it would include the extra system files /drivers that my hardware needed. I thought that was the whole point of having a recovery drive.

It's absolute nonsense to suggest that it's just no big deal to make installation media instead. Not to mention that this whole to pic is about RECOVERY. That means that many people will be in some kind of crippled environment, so everything might be more difficult than it should be.

I'd be most grateful for any explanation of the two points above. In the meantime, I'll take a moment and weigh the pros & cons between the "solution" given here (4 hours to download the media, going out to buy another USB stick, doing the "easy 30 minute install" mentioned above, followed of course by several hours of getting back the drivers which I thought I had saved by making a recovery drive, followed by another 6 hours to reinstall all the mandatory windows updates, and bla bla bla) - - versus the other "solution" i can think of - - to take the opportunity to install Linux Ubuntu or mint or perhaps remix OS.

Thanks in advance, I'm sure the info will help others complete their SSD upgrades in the future.

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