How to increase the System Reserved Partition size

Molyy said:

Since the systems were installed on two different hard disks, you only need to backup the hard drive where Win 10 is on. The disk image will usually be about 10% smaller than the source disk after compression, but this depends on the file types that you have on the hard disk. As to partition manager software, you can try free easeus partition tool if partition wizard didn't work for you.

Thanks for clearing the doubt.

topgundcp said:

FYI. Windows 10 MBR style clean install will create 500MB Reseved Partition. Not 350MB

I know each of us doing things differently but your Windows 10 is 230GB full ??? This is way, way too big to handle. May I suggest that you move all your personal data to another drive/partition and leave Windows 10 by itself so it is much easier to manage and back up and not counting if your Windows 10 crashed/unbootable/infected then you would have a very hard time to recover your personal data.

All that said. Suggested above to install Macrium Reflect Free is also highly recommended. I am not sure what software you are now using to back up your Windows but with Macrium, you should not have any problem backing up.

However. If you still want to resize the reserved partition to whatever you want without using third party partition manager such as Minitool, EASUS etc... Believe it or not ? you can do it with Macrium and here's how:
NOTE: This procedure assumes that you've already created a Macrium backup image to backup Windows 10 using the option from the left pane as shown

and also you've already created a Macrium Rescue disk.

This procedure is done using my current Windows 10 with the reserved partition of 500MB and C: Drive and I want to increase the size to 1000MB so yours will be different. However, it will be the same for any Windows 10 partition scheme whether it's MBR or UEFI.

Just follow the screen shot:
Attachment 41824
Attachment 41825

Attachment 41828

Attachment 41828

Attachment 41829

After all the steps above. Click Next and finish to restore then reboot. The Reserved Partition should be the size that you changed.

Hope this helps.

P.S. If you want to check and see the contents of the Reserved Partition then you can use Mini Tool without assigning a letter for it.
Open Mini Tool. Right click on the Reserved Partition -> Explore
For Example:
NOTE: This screen shot was taken from my UEFI Windows 10 so it is not related to the steps above.

Thanks for detailed information. I may be wrong about 350 MB System Reserved Partition. I only wanted to increase the System Reserved Partition size because Windows backup was failing and as you all are suggesting to use Macrium for backup then why to go for increasing the System Reserve Partition (but I will give a try as taught by you). Please make one more thing clear that while replying to a post, Do I need to Quote the full message of the member. Secondly why my System Reserved Partition is assigned a Drive letter by default.

topgundcp said:

FYI. Windows 10 MBR style clean install will create 500MB Reseved Partition. Not 350MB

I know each of us doing things differently but your Windows 10 is 230GB full ??? This is way, way too big to handle. May I suggest that you move all your personal data to another drive/partition and leave Windows 10 by itself so it is much easier to manage and back up and not counting if your Windows 10 crashed/unbootable/infected then you would have a very hard time to recover your personal data.

All that said. Suggested above to install Macrium Reflect Free is also highly recommended. I am not sure what software you are now using to back up your Windows but with Macrium, you should not have any problem backing up.

However. If you still want to resize the reserved partition to whatever you want without using third party partition manager such as Minitool, EASUS etc... Believe it or not ? you can do it with Macrium and here's how:
NOTE: This procedure assumes that you've already created a Macrium backup image to backup Windows 10 using the option from the left pane as shown

and also you've already created a Macrium Rescue disk.

This procedure is done using my current Windows 10 with the reserved partition of 500MB and C: Drive and I want to increase the size to 1000MB so yours will be different. However, it will be the same for any Windows 10 partition scheme whether it's MBR or UEFI.

No offense topguntcp but that method seems way to difficult AND time consuming too!! Using MiniTool I could have done all of what you did in maybe 10 sec's or less. If a user had difficulty using MiniTool to change partitions, using Macrium Reflect to change partitions seems to be MUCH more difficult then MiniTool. I was just trying to give him an EASY way to re-size his partitons. Not make it more harder to do. :)

sam9 said:

Thanks for detailed information. I may be wrong about 350 MB System Reserved Partition. I only wanted to increase the System Reserved Partition size because Windows backup was failing and as you all are suggesting to use Macrium for backup then why to go for increasing the System Reserve Partition (but I will give a try as taught by you). Please make one more thing clear that while replying to a post, Do I need to Quote the full message of the member. Secondly why my System Reserved Partition is assigned a Drive letter by default.

You make a good point about your system reserved partition, needing to be increased or not. I never use windows backup, don't trust it myself, that's why I use Macrium for image backups. You could turn off Windows Backup and just use a program like Macrium Reflect for your backups, and not change any of your partitions. Just a thought.....:)

As topgundcp, a data partition is probably a good idea to store your data on, and make the system partition smaller. Then, to me, it seems like it would be the data partition you would want to back up. It easy (maybe time consuming) to restore the OS from install media, especially with Microsoft's new hardware activation scheme, you don't even have to keep track of your Windows product key. But the data is not so easy to restore and much more concern if lost.

OldMike65 said:

No offense topguntcp but that method seems way to difficult AND time consuming too!! Using MiniTool I could have done all of what you did in maybe 10 sec's or less. If a user had difficulty using MiniTool to change partitions, using Macrium Reflect to change partitions seems to be MUCH more difficult then MiniTool. I was just trying to give him an EASY way to re-size his partitons. Not make it more harder to do. :)

I respect your suggestion of Mini Tool. May be I have done something wrong earlier. I will certainly try again because I do not want to blame a software for my mistakes. If everything goes right now then it mean that I may have done something wrong earlier.

topgundcp said:

No offense taken. However, if you read the post, OP did not want to use Mini Tool for one thing. 2nd, the procedure I posted is straight forward if you follow the steps, you may be overwhelmed with the screen shots but actually it is very simple and only requires a few clicks. So what is too difficult about it ??? Time consuming about a few clicks ?

FYI, I also use a Professional portable version of Mini Tool. I just don't want to install anything that I rarely use. If a person has a bad experience about it then I just provide the alternative which they feel comfortable with.

BTW, did you try what I suggested before making a statement: too difficult and time comsuming ?

@Sam,
The reserved partition should not have any letter assigned and hidden. Just open Disk Management and remove the letter.

I will give a try to Macrium to a different PC. Your screenshots are very clear and after practically doing it, I will see whether I can move to next screenshot or get confused at any time. Thanks again to you and OldMike65.