Windows 10 Update can't update system reserved partition

Your Windows was installed using GPT type and there's no such thing as Active/Inactive with UEFI. With UEFI the boot order is controlled by the "Windows Boot Manager" not by the order of the drives. However, the order of the drives will help booting a little faster when the boot drive is set first.
As a good practice, I would take slartybart's advice and swap the drive.

@OP,
If you open the Admin Command Prompt and run:

1. diskpart
2. select disk 0 if you've already swap the disk, else select disk 1
3. list partition

You'll will find that you have:
1GB Recovery partition
100MB EFI System (FAT32 format)
128MB MSR partition unformatted and currently not used
Your C Drive
10.93 GB Factory Recovery partition.

The 100MB EFI System is in FAT32 format and contains: BCD, EFI Boot code and language files and take only ~25MB. There is no reason to increase this partition to 450MB.

What you should increase is the 1GB Recovery partition to say 2GB to be safe. This partition on a normal fresh Windows installation is 450MB. Your Windows 8 was reconfigured by the manufacturer to include extra code and also the recovery agent to point to the 10.93GB partition in case you need recover Windows back to factory. This partition might be full so Windows upgrade cannot create any backup needed to proceed.

With that said, I suggest:

1. Make a full backup of your current Windows in case things go wrong so you can restore it.
2. Open disk management, right click on C and shrink by entering 1024 (1GB)
3. Use AOMEI Partition Assistant – free disk partition manager software, helps you to resize partitions, merge partitions etc. to resize the recovery partition from 1GB to 2GB
4. Reboot your PC
5. Try to upgrade again

Here's the partition layout of Fresh install Windows RTM & Windows TP 10532 on 2 separate SSD's. Note that the MSR is only 16MB in Windows 10. 128MB in Windows 8

topgundcp said:

@OP,
If you open the Admin Command Prompt and run:

1. diskpart
2. select disk 0 if you've already swap the disk, else select disk 1
3. list partition

You'll will find that you have:
1GB Recovery partition
100MB EFI System (FAT32 format)
128MB MSR partition unformatted and currently not used
Your C Drive
10.93 GB Factory Recovery partition.

The 100MB EFI System is in FAT32 format and contains: BCD, EFI Boot code and language files and take only ~25MB. There is no reason to increase this partition to 450MB.

What you should increase is the 1GB Recovery partition to say 2GB to be safe. This partition on a normal fresh Windows installation is 450MB. Your Windows 8 was reconfigured by the manufacturer to include extra code and also the recovery agent to point to the 10.93GB partition in case you need recover Windows back to factory. This partition might be full so Windows upgrade cannot create any backup needed to proceed.

With that said, I suggest:

1. Make a full backup of your current Windows in case things go wrong so you can restore it.
2. Open disk management, right click on C and shrink by entering 1024 (1GB)
3. Use AOMEI Partition Assistant – free disk partition manager software, helps you to resize partitions, merge partitions etc. to resize the recovery partition from 1GB to 2GB
4. Reboot your PC
5. Try to upgrade again

Thanks Topgun,

My head wasn't on straight when I suggested swapping the drives. I still think Disk 0 should be connected to the first port, but for the upgrade, do NOT reconnect Disk 1. Wait until after the upgrade is complete to connect the 2nd drive.

What was I Thinking - that is best practice material to only have the OS disk connected when installing or upgrading!

I took another look at rittercon's Disk Management in post# 1 and all of the special partitions are 100% free. This doesn't mean that there's nothing on them, it probably means that the space used is so small as to not be reported.

Before making any other suggestions, I'd need to know what is on those partitions.
If rittercon assigned drive letters and changed File Explorer view options to include hidden files and system files, then looked at each partition (posting what is listed) - that would be extremely helpful.

An easy way to grab the file list in File Explorer is to highlight all objects (select all) and use the Home ribbon > copy path feature, then paste the clipboard in a text file.

I'd also like to see what Diskpart says about the disk schema

Command prompt (Admin)

Diskpart
sel dis 0
lis par
*** for each partition X
sel par X
det par

sel dis 1
lis par
*** for each partition X
sel par X
det par

exit
exit

Please post the output (right click the Command prompt title bar, select edit, pick select all, select edit, pick copy)

rittercon, below the fold is for discussion only
do NOT take any action until
1) You post the output I requested, and
2) members helping you have a chance to review and comment.

---

Here is what I'm thinking
shrink the 1 GB Recovery part to 450 MB, label = Windows RE Tools
Move (left) / resize (grow) the ESP (EFI System partition) to 260 MB - advanced 4k drives, label=System

This will match the recommended MS disk schema
See: Sample: Configure UEFI/GPT-Based Hard Drive Partitions by Using Windows PE and DiskPart

1. Windows RE tools partition

partition primary size=450 (Win8.1=300)
fs=ntfs label="Windows RE tools"
id="de94bba4-06d1-4d40-a16a-bfd50179d6ac"

2. System partition

partition efi size=260 (std=100)
** NOTE: For Advanced Format 4Kn drives, change this value to size = 260 **
fs=fat32 label="System"

3. Microsoft Reserved (MSR) partition

partition msr size=128

Decided to swap SSD positions as suggested by Slartybart; mainly because I'm anal and don't like things out of order. My laptop has 3 slots for HDDs; one for m-sata (empty) and two for sata (full). Started the laptop, but it wouldn't boot (as the Lieutenant Commander said it wouldn't). Entered BIOS (UEFI) and manually set the correct SSD (c drive) to boot first. Interestingly, BIOS displayed the m-sata as HDD 1, the data disk (e drive) as HDD 2, and the boot drive (c drive) as HDD 3.

Anyway- the laptop booted into windows just fine. Disk Management shows the two SSD's as GPT partitions, as everyone suspected. Disk Management now shows my primary drive as drive 0 and my data drive as drive 1.

Diskpart reveals pretty much everything that Topgun said it would:
1GB Recovery partition (hidden)
100MB EFI System (FAT32 format) (system)
128MB Reserved (hidden)
My C Drive (boot)
10 GB Recovery partition (hidden)

Will continue reading the other posts and follow-up w/ more.

Thanks!

NavyLCDR said:

Rittercon,

You can read the lengthy posts and procedures that topgundcp and slartybart have made, but keep in mind one thing:
Solved Windows 10 couldn't update system reserved partition - Windows 10 Forums

A three post thread. Problem. Three sentence solution. Problem solved.

Yeah. Read this post and you keep refering back to MBR style installation and it worked. Keep in mind, OP is using GPT style installation