Windows 10 couldn't be installed. We couldn't update the system reserved partition.

Well, when I tried to install W10 I got this message.

"Windows 10 couldn't be installed. We couldn't update the system reserved partition."

I've been searching for a solution, but it appears that the solutions are too complex

for me to understand. Some have to do with entering commands via CMD.EXE, which

I think is DOS. I think I need to "extend" the "Data" partition on my C drive somehow

so that it is increased from 100MB to over 400MB....(?) I have W7 on the C drive.

Just hoping someone can give some direction to solving this issue that a novice can understand.

Doing a fresh install W10 and then reinstalling FSX is not something I think I could now do at my age. (71)

W7 is installed on the C drive 465.66GB, along with the partition labeled 'Data' 100MB.

In your situation, it will be best just to stick with Win 7. Your system is running well and all is good.

This is certainly the easiest option. Another is to look into a partition management program that would make resizing partitions much easier. There are some free options, but many aren't.

I use Paragon Software's Hard Disk Manager. They have a more specific product called Partition Manager that has a limited free edition. Not sure if the free edition would help with the hidden Windows partitions though.

Your graphic seems to indicate that you do not have enough room on your hard drive partition to install Win10. I had the same problem. Put simply, there is not enough space on your OS partition for the windows installer to do its magic. I moved all my non OS programs to another drive to create the space needed. Do you need all those backups on your hard drive? Perhaps buy a USB portable drive to keep your backups on, thereby freeing up more useable space for programs.

Sent from my tablet thingy!

Thanks for all of your replies.

My C drive is a 500gbs SSD. It has 2 partitions.

1 for the W7 Os which is 465gbs and a 2nd partition labeled 'DATA' which is 100mbs is size. I think there is more than enough room to do the update to W10.

I find it disappointing that the W10 update can't handle this situation.

I had problems upgrading to Windows 10 and there is a possible flight sim-related cause. I hope that this is the case for you, because it is easily fixed.

My upgrade would start installing then fail with various numbered error messages... The final one was numbered "0X80070004-3000D". This was fixed by simply deleting a tiny file from FSX Scenery producers Orbx called "TODO" and located in the folder:

C:\Users\Xyour nameX\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Orbx

I was very surprised that this single, tiny file could halt the mighty Windows 10 upgrade, but once that file was removed Windows 10 installed immediately (the Orbx file was preventing a MIGRATE_DATA operation). Orbx have released a fixing update to their FTX Central that removes the file. See originating forum message at the 'other place' (Avsim):

http://www.avsim.com/topic/472563-to-anyone-getting-the-0x80070004-0x3000d-on-install/

Clearly this could effect many flight simmers without the latest Orbx update.

I do suggest you check for this file, and if you find it, remove it, and then try upgrading again in the hope that it is enough to allow the upgrade.

Tony

The partition that is labeled data is the issue. This is the boot partition.

Boot partition contains info about your drives, where they start and end. Also where the first windows file is that needs to be started.

It does not need to contain much, for win7, only 100 mb is plenty.

Sometimes over time more gets stored in it.

It seems for win10 there is not enough space left to put its boot files in.

(in many systems this partition is labeled "system reserved" , in my win7 as well. The name -data- is not the problem.)

the advice in the link in your own first post is good. It clears some space in the boot partition.

The command prompt is not difficult. They gave all commands you need, in that link, and you just need to type them in.

(myself I would first make a system image of the boot drive and C:\ drive on an external HDD. Just in case.)

the advice about using paragon or similar program is different. These programs can resize drives and afterwards windows can still boot. With that you could make the boot drive 500 Mb for example and make your C:\ drive a little smaller.

Notice, Mb. Megabytes.

Not Gigabytes.

A megabyte is about a 1000 times less then a gigabyte.

I think this is the page I meant:

But, there is more info out there. Google it a bit.

Also, make sure there instructions are for your version of windows !!

I want to thank you guys for your help.

I need to ask these questions b4 I can move on: for il88pp

1. Could I just remove the "Data" partition and have the OS still boot?

...OR

2. ..Could I copy the Boot Folder and bootmgr File from the "Data" partition over to the C-folder with the OS on it.... and then remove that little partition, could the OS still boot?

your first question I maybe know.

A little while back I bought a 256 GB ssd. My first ever.

Untill then I had a single HDD. 1000 Gb -- 3 partitins -- C D and E

I have a program called Acronis.

I bought it to transfer the system to the much smaller SSD harddisk.

With it you can make a system image of only one partition, and then restore that to a new drive.

(It can also make an mage of all partitions at once, as a backup you can store on an external HDD)

When I looked at my old HDD with Acronis I saw there were actually 4 partitions.

"System reserved", C, D, and E.

I made an image of all partitions.

I first tried restoring only C:\ to the SSD.

Acronis completed successfully, but I could not get it to boot from the SSD.

(I had only the SSD plugged in while restoring and trying to boot. Just in case.)

------

Then I tried again, this time I restored both the Boot partition and C:\\ partition.

That time the system booted OK.

C:\ was fully intact. All programs ok.

( I eventually wiped the HDD, restored only D and E, from the backup-image to the HDD, and had some free space on the HDD. I still have the free space, so I can decide on how to best use it when I need it later. The result was now, Boot and C:\ on the SSD, D and E on the HDD, some free space, and I could continue where I had left off.)

----

Anyway, the boot partition could not simply be left out.

***********************************

I do believe that when installing windows, from the DVD,, there is an option to not create a boot partition.

But, again I'm not very sure of it.

And don't know Windows10. May be that even -requires- a Boot partition.

I have no idea if you can change it afterwards, by adding something to the C:\ drive and then removing the boot partition. --Interesting question.

##Adding:

I installed Win7-64b on this pc well over 1.5 years ago, and it's been running smoothly ever since, so the details of installing Win7 have faded a bit.

As you have found, windows can only resize drives "from the right hand side". You can make C smaller, but that only creates space behind C.

You need free space before C.

To create free space in front of a drive there are several payware solutions. And looking into Win10 because of tis, I saw a few people shout there were windows freewares too.

I don't know those, but I do know how to do it in Linux.

There is a free Linux based toolkit you can use to easily resize drives.

!! But, it is risky, it can cause an unbootable system. !!

!! You must make a system image of at least your main disk, before using this. !!

(in my case Boot Drive and C drive, D and E are on a second disk. And I disconnect that disk before starting, to be safe.)

--------------

Make the sytem image first!!

--------------

The software I used to resize my drives is SystemRescueCD.

This gives you a live linux Operating system, with many tools on board.

Free.

You can download it as an .iso file.

You can then burn a CD from that .iso file.

Insert the CD and reboot, choosing "Boot from CD drive" at startup.

And choose 'directly start the graphical interface'.

You will boot into linux. It will look like a normal desktop, with a start menu like you are used to.

==Nothing gets installed on your PC, it runs completely from the CD.==

Instead of putting it on a CD, you can also put an .iso on a USB stick.

-----------------

Ok, when system rescue CD has started you have a very powerfull toolkit.

You can format drives from it,

You can 'Mount' drives - the linux way is to not mount a drive at boot - then you can mount it if you want to get access to your files.

As long as it is not mounted you can't access your files or edit them.

***For partitioning, resizing, formatting drives it is not necessary to mount them.

-------------------------------

Ok, the resizing.

Do make sure you read the instructions on the site as well.

I think I can explain in simple steps.

Or a least, what I would do. But i may go to fast, I've been using it for a few months now.

At boot I would select to boot into the graphical environment. To have the desktop.

Then, use linux to find out some info abou the disk.

-click start -- click system tools -- click "show drive information".

That will open a terminal window, that lists all your drives. Their size, and their 'linux name'.

linux names disks "sda" or "sdb" etcetera.

"sda1" would be the first partition on the first harddisk. But careful !

The order in which drives are listed is different from the way windows lists drives.

MAKE SURE YOU SELECT THE RIGHT DRIVES -by checking the drive size. Maybe write thing down.

Also you must know that linux often uses 1Tb = 1000Gb (not 953 or something like windows)

So look at ALL your drives, and select the correct one.

let's say you see this in the list:

/dev/sda1 --- 100Mb --- 'sytem reserved' ---- Active

/dev/sda2 --- 499Gb ---- "System" -----------

/dev/sdb1 --- 4Gb ------- "SysResCD" ------------ Active

You then know, by checking the sizes, sda is your SSD. And sda1 and sda2 are the drives.

(sdb is my usb with sysrescueCd on it)

Now you know what the drive is called that you want to resize.

Let's say it's /dev/sda

(/dev is a mount point that linux uses to acces the devices. See ** below.)

----------------------------------

Ok the resizing itself.

For that you use the utility Gparted.

Make sure you are editing the correct 2disks only.

This is the most dangerous tool, as it can format drives.

You see the drives and their partitions in this utility, not the files on them.

You start Gparted and it first begins to scan your drives.

Then it shows you the first Disk, and in the top-right you can select the other Disks and view those.

Select at the top right the disk you want to change. Let's still assume sda.

You will see a bar displaying the partitions, and how much space is used in each partition.

You then choose the operations you want GParted to do to the drives, one at a time.

Once you have everything set as you want it you click "apply all operations". (that is a green button at the top.)

Nothing is applied before you click "apply all operations".

If you make a mistake before you clicked apply, simply click 'Undo all operations', and start over.

Now in steps:

*select sda2 by clicking on that part of the bar.

(this is the C:\\ -drive)

*from the top menu bar, select 'Resize'.

*a window pops up, displaying only that drive size.

*drag the slider from the left inward a bit.

(This resizes and creates free space in front of the C:\\ drive.)

*click ok.

Then,

*select sda1 by clicking on that part of the bar.

(this is the Boot -drive)

*from the top menu bar, select 'Resize'.

*a window pops up, displaying only that drive size.

*It will show there is free space availabe.

*drag the slider from the right a bit further to the right. Filling all the free space.

(This resizes and makes the Boot partition larger.)

*click ok.

You will see at the top of Gparted: "2 Operations Pending"

Click "Apply All Operations".

You will get a warning this will take a long time. Click ok.

It can really take long. Don't get impatient and don't close it or start playing with the other utilities. Just wait it out.

I said "drag the sliders" but you can also select the size more precisely. Remember, 10 Gb in Gparted will be less in windows. Around 9.3 Gb I think. So free up a little more space then you feel is good.

The reason these operations takes so long is that when resizing C:\ from the left side like this, all your files need to be moved.

The following image is an impression of what you will see in GParted.

1. = When first you start GParted and view the whole sda.

2. = What you see after you have selected the resizing of sda2 (= C )

3. = What you will should see in sda after all operations have been applied.

When all is done, close GParted and the other windows, and select logoff (at the bottom-Left, not the bottom right).

A window will pop up, select Reboot there.

This time let the system boot from the harddisk and all should be well.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

In case the system won't boot there are a few options:

1:

Start SysRescueCd again and start GParted.

Select the boot drive, by clicking on the bar, and select "Repair" from the menu.

Select the C: drive sda2, by clicking on the bar, and select "repair" from the menu.

Then click apply all operations.

Then select the boot drive again, and make sure the "bootable" or :active" flag is set.

Reboot, and try booting into Windows again.

2:

Try using the Windows "System Repair Disk".

(If you don't have that, create one from: Windows Start Menu -- System -- Bacup and Recovery.)

Maybe one of those tools will help.

3:

If all else fails, restore the system image you made before you started.

If you used the inbuilt Windows option of creating a system image, in Backup andd Recovery, you will need a Windows System Repair Disk to get it restored. You need that to access your external harddisk that contains the image when windows can't boot.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**about /dev/sda1

All it is is a mount point for devices. dev stands for device. A way for linux to acces them.

You would use this if you want to mount a drive. In that case you would open a terminal, and first type:

mkdir /media/mydrive

(Then press ) This creates a mount point in /media, you chose to name the mount point /mydrive. (you can choose any name)

Then type:

Mount /dev/sda1 /media/mydrive

(Then press ) That mounts /dev/sda1 in location /media/mydrive.

You can then, for example, open the file explorer, emelfm2. Browse to "folder" media/mydrive/, and in there you will see all your files. You basically access /media/mydrive as if it is a folder even though it really is a mount point. You can copy move and delete files.

From there you can also open files. There was no photo viewer, but I could open Notepad files.

**some commands

Mount ------ To mount a device

Umount ---- To un-mount a device

mkdir ------ make directory

rmdir ------ remove directory

**good to know

This SysRescueCD is just that, a CD. You don't change the linux OS by working with it.

Each time you start it, you must create the mount points again.

They are created in memory only (RAM). Nothing is stored on your harddisks.

This is also true when you place SystemrescueCD on a usb stick.

You can of course use Linux to create files on your harddisk too, or to move them there from a usb for example. But that's what you do.

Linux won't store any OS files or program files there that it needs to be able to run. All that is on the CD, or stored temporarily in RAM only.

----------------=====================

==Personal tale:

I used the toolkit recently. A freind had a apple formatted external harddisk that had failed. She wanted her pictures back.

The disk had a hfs+ filesystem. I took the drive apart, and hooked it up to my computer. But Windows can not see hfs+ partitions.

I booted up SysRescueCD, that could see and access hfs+. I resized my own external harddisk. I created 300Gb free space, and turned it into a hfs+ partition.

Then I mounted her drive, and could see her files from linux.

I also mounted my own hfs+ partition.

I could not view her images in linux, but I was able to simply copy all the files over.

Sysrescue cd even printed a list of files that had not been copied. read-write error. (I later found out her drive was really failing. It did not pass the s.m.a.r.t. status test any more.) I tried copying thes one at a time, and saved a few more. Only around 3% of all files remained unrecoverable.

I also was able to copy her files from her HFS partition to my own Windows NTFS partition. I could then open the photo's in Windows, and see they were unharmed.

I was not really sure her apple would like the disk if it wasn't formatted from an Apple OS, but it worked.

I had bought her a new external harddisk as a birthday present. I created on that again one hfs+ partition, and copied the rescued files from my external to her new drive.

Last weekend we went to visit, and she plugged in the drive and everything worked great. 4 years of pictures recovered! Yeah SysRescueCD!

-----------------------------

Also, Recently I accidentally unplugged a usb stick without switching it off in Windows first. When I plugged it in again Windows could not access it or format it.

With SystemrescueCD I could acces it fine. I rescued the files.

Then I used Gparted and formatted the usb drive.

Worked a charm.

I made a small error there. GParted does show the same sizes a windows does.

Your 100mb partition will show up as 100 Mib.

I had not tried to re-size a boot partition like this yet.

I just now tried it and it worked.

It took two more steps then I thought.

I will write down what I did step by step, and post it.

It will be more concise then the last explanation.

Could be a few hours before I get to my pc.

There are some very good, easy to use free partition managers out there. Google is your friend. They come with instructions and are reliable. You can't just move files willy nilly, if you do, you will probably end up with an unbootable system. As I said earlier, you have to increase the size of the OS partition so it has enough room for the existing Win 7, the Win 10 installation files, and the new Win 10.

Sent from my tablet thingy!

I had this done in an hour with SysRescueCD. And a perfectly bootable system. (after a very quick fix).

The only reason my pc is not on now is because there's a large thunderstorm going outside.

The message if gets is : "win could not use the sys reserved partition."

in his system the sys reserved part is labeled "data". But that is just the label, the name.

His issue is not free space on c drive.

First of all. The label "data" may be confusing to you.

It is not a data-partition. There is no user data in it.

It is the system reserved partition.

Not for the user to mess with. Only the system.

In your computer it is labeled 'data'. Why, no idea, maybe you named it that. But i saw on Google more people have that.

Remember, it is just a Label. A name for you to recognise it by. The word 'data' there does not mean anything to the system.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

I wasn't 100% sure this would work. I had never tried resizing the boot partition.

Well, I just tried it, and it worked.

Took two more steps then I thought, so I will write a guide again. This time shorter.

I have a 256 Gb SSD (238 in Windows) with only a 100 Mb boot-partition and a 238 Gb C-partition.

I made the C partition a bit smaller, and moved it to the right.

And I increased the size of the boot-partition, from 100 Mb to 299 Mb

*******************************************************

In steps.

I first made a system image. Of Boot and C combined.

I booted from SystemRescueCD.

I checked, my SSD was sda

sda1 was the 100Mb partition, sda2 was 238 Gb.

I started GParted

I saw sda

clicked on sda2 to select it. --> right clicked sda2. --> selected "Resize/Move"

In window that popped up --> used arrow buttons to change the size.

In free space preceeding box --> up arrow button --> increased form 0 to 200 Mib.

(reduces size of C drive)

clicked "Resize/Move" button --> warning/are you sure --> clicked ok.

----------

clicked sda1 --> right-clicked sda1 --> selected "Resize/Move"

in 'new Size' box --> clicking up arrow --> as far as that would go. (using all free 200 Mib)

Clicked "Resize/Move" --> OK

----------

Then a small hickup.

I noticed there stiil was free space between sda1 and sda2

I don't want that

checking sda1 (clcicking "resize/move" again) I see it has become 299 Mib (not the 300 I wanted.)

Tried to increase to 300, no success.

Clicked cancel.

-----------

Then tried to fix the 'gap' between them by editing sda2.

Right-clicked sda2 --> "Resize/Move" -->

changed "Space Preceeding" from 1 to 0 Mib (arrow buttons) --> that worked.

Now no more gap between sda1 and sda2

------------

Now three operations pending.

Clicked apply all operations.

-------------

Time the operations took:

operation1 - move sda2 to the right and shrink it -- 25mins,

operation2 - grow sda1 from 100 to 299 Mib --------- 0 seconds

operation3 - move sda2 to the left ---------------------20 mins

For you it will take longer, my SSD is only 256Gb.

----

Then I closed GParted and the other open windows -- Clicked Start -- Reboot.

------------

**********

-----------

Now there was an issue. The system did not boot. Instead I saw a message, quoted loosely, "Windows has been damaged, insert your windows install disk to repair this damage. Continue (enter) or Cancel (Escape)".

I decided not to use the Windows installation disk, but the Windows System Reppair Disk. (I explained earlier how to make this disk from Windows Backup).

I grabbed the System Repair disk and inserted it in the drive.

I then rebooted, and during boot I pressed F12, to boot from CD.

-----------

I'll tell you what I saw and did:

-----------

System Repair Disk started.

Gave me a prompt "Choose Language". (looks like the one you get when installing windows).

I just chose US. (first one.)

....

...waiting a bit.

...

then: "Problems have been found with this computer. Do you want to fix these and reboot?"

YES! that's exactly what I want! :)

The pc Rebooted almost instantly.

-------------

and Bingo! ---> Pc now starts. (windows 7 starts)

------------

I did get: "Checking File System (press any key within 10 seconds to cancel)" --> Yes.

DO NOT CANCEL THE FILE SYSTEM CHECK.

This can really fix some errors.

-------------

There may have been one more reboot, I'm not sure.

Then -- Straight into Windows, everything still there. Desktop as clean as I had left it.

------------

** **Some links:

SystemRescueCD:

http://www.sysresccd.org/SystemRescueCd_Homepage

--->Burn the .iso to a CD.

Info on creating a Windows SystemImage:

Also info in there about creating a Windows System Repair Disk:

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/4241/how-to-create-a-system-image-in-windows-7/

***

***

Some details.

*

Make sure the system image you create contains both: Boot and C.

*

--In your situation maybe create a little more then 200Mib extra space. (500 or so)

I don't know how much you need for Win10.

I just did 200 as a test. T test for you if the principle worked.

*

-Win reports the name of my 100 Mb part as 'system reserved'.

GParted and the other linux tools also show 'system reserved' and 100 Mib.

*

-The new size of the 'system reserved' partition is correctly reported in windows as 299 Mb.

*

-I did all this with the HDD connected. I did not disconnect it first.

If you are afraid you will select the wrong disk you could disconnect from your mainboard that first.

*

-I can understand if this does not look exactly 'easy' to you. When I say easy, I mean you don't need to be typing in all kinds of code.

It takes some careful planning, and knowing what you want to do.

But the tools in linux are pretty intuitive.

And if you hover the mouse over something in systemrescueCD, you get a little popup telling you what it does.

*

I'm not to afraid to do this stuff, because on C is only my OS and programs, including FSX.

All my data (Pictures, personal files, own creations) is on the HDD, on D and E.

And I have a system image of the SSD, so I can restore that if things go wrong.

Plus I have a great backup of D and E as well. I just copy all folders on those 2 drives to an external Harddisk at least once a week.

Here's what it looked like when GParted was applying the operations.

(1 and 2 done, busy applying operation 3):

The original poster stated he was 71yo and was looking for a simple to understand solution to his not being able to upgrade to Win 10. Hopefully all this Linux info will help somebody out there, but I doubt it will help the OP. Linux is a beast if you have never used it.

As JSKorna said, if Win7 is running fine, then there really is no need to upgrade. The only really viable solution would be to back-up all documents, pictures etc. to a different drive, USB, or DVD, then reformat the boot drive and do a fresh install of Win10.

Sent from my tablet thingy!