On a UEFI - GPT disk the boot loader is on a 100M Fat32 partition. On the disk images you posted I can see a Fat32 partition but I can't say if it is on your Win 10 disk as you have other disks attached.
So the first thing to find out is to know if your Win 10 disk is a Legacy-MBR or UEFI-GPT disk.
Open Disk Manager, go to (top menu) VIEW and select Top - Disk List.
What kind of disk is your Win 10, Legacy-MBR or UEFI-GPT?
Below is my win 10 1903 Disk manager image.
[QUOTE=Megahertz;1709934]On a UEFI - GPT disk the boot loader is on a 100M Fat32 partition. On the disk images you posted I can see a Fat32 partition but I can't say if it is on your Win 10 disk as you have other disks attached.
So the first thing to find out is to know if your Win 10 disk is a Legacy-MBR or UEFI-GPT disk
What kind of disk is your Win 10, Legacy-MBR or UEFI-GPT?
/QUOTE]
Checked already: Legacy MBR
haku
Do you have the Win 10 installation disk?
What OS came with the computer, Win 7. 8.x or 10?
On a OEM computer, the System Reserved is the active partition as it has the boot loader and some OEM tools (like diagnostic and factory recover tools).
I suppose you did a Win 7 to Win 10 upgrade. This upgrade did not cleaned the Win 7 tools on the System partition. You probably still have a win 7 factory recover partition (~15G) that now is useless unless you want to have the possibility to return to win 7.
I think that you can set the system partition as non active and set the C: partition as active (to be confirmed by the Gurus) or delete and rebuilt the system partition as Navy suggested.
Deleting that indeed useless "Recover" partition, or at least reducing its size, would seem the thing to do because the whole problem of 1903 update aborting is due to partition 1 being slightly too small, and one could then think about resizing it... where it not that manipulating that drive is almost impossible since a few updates. Moreover, if one manages to do some resizing after some heavy interventions, things seem to revert to the previous sizes, heaven knows why.
It's a real mess, and Microsoft is always the culprit for not cleaning up properly after a major update (they do however clean up all possibilities to go back prior to the update by erasing all recovery points - I darkly suspect to avoid being confronted with proofs of their shenanigans.
Anyway, I'm sick and tired for so much time lost.
But still many thanks.
H
- - - Updated - - -
Well, Windows 10/1903 finally installed. Procedure went without a hitch. And if I had known that the update included an almost complete backup of all discarded files on C: in "windows.old", I would not have hesitated so long before updating. The hassle of having to reinstall all my apps (including, to my dismay, Google Drive Backup & Sync utility, which I use to backup my files on the cloud - and which now has to start all over again: Google syncs everything over all my devices, but does not seem capable of syncing its own utilities - even Microsoft's clunky OneDrive is more clever than that!)
Be all those harassements what they may, I learned a lot during this long and frustrating experience: using Rollback instead of painful Windows recovery, getting to know Ubuntu (and its own set of quirks: ah, those grub rescues! ah, those all but intuitive commands!), and that wonderful set of utilities and true saving apps in Kyhi... and all your invaluable (if sometimes quite over my head) suggestions and solutions.
Probably I'll never know how the Windows 1903 failed update attempts almost managed to thrash my external hard drive, and in the end, after yet one of those attempts, first produced an incomprehensible BSOD with the error code 0xc00000609, which was then followed, after each reboot from another Rollback snapshot by an error code 0xc000000f (which never tells you anything).
On the other hand, installation of Windows seems far better now. But please tell users who would be confronted with a reinstall problem, that not everything is lost in C: (re the backup in "windows.old").
Anyway, thanks to everybody. And do know, to repeat myself, that I read all of your messages with great attention - re that unfair accusation that I didn't read your threads!
Bye and consider it solved... in a way.
haku
That's great to read that the installation was successful.
You're welcome.
Run sfc /scannow as some new installations may have a hash mismatch.
Please make a backup image and save it to another disk drive or the cloud.
Haku, did you do an update or did you did a reinstall?
My suggestion is to buy a small 120G SSD and do a fresh install on it. Then move C:\users from the SSD to a HDD.
You will have the speed of a SSD with the space of a HDD at low cost (~US$25).
I can guide you as I have done it many times.
A complete reinstall.
I'm contemplating the idea of fitting an SSD into my desktop computer even a 512 one - and indeed transferring the OS on it (don't know why "users" shouldn't fit on it too).
Everything works fine now. And if I had known that the whole C: caboodle is backed up in a windows.old folder, I wouldn't have hesitated so long before doing the update.
Anyway, that's water under a very long bridge now. Back to real work without interruptions!
Best
haku
A reset save files equivalent was suggested.
What would you have done with win.old?
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