Nondestructive reinstall says not enough free space on partition D?

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I’m doing Fred’s nondestructive reinstall on my Win7 desktop. Initially it stopped saying not enough free space on C: drive (SSD). Cleared some space, ran again and I get message “Not enough free space on partition D”. It needs 15MB. I don’t understand this as I have C: (120GB SSD), E: DVD, F: & G: both 2TB drives. What is partition D:?

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You mention you have C, E, F & G. This implies that you have a D: but it is MIA. Fire up Disk Management and look for a partition just after C:. You can post a screen shot if that helps.
To run Disk Managment, Start > Run > diskmgmt.msc

cheers, Paul

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You mention you have C, E, F & G. This implies that you have a D: but it is MIA. Fire up Disk Management and look for a partition just after C:. You can post a screen shot if that helps.
To run Disk Managment, Start > Run > diskmgmt.msc

cheers, Paul

Thanks for the reply Paul. diskmngt shows no mention of D:
39654-ScreenHunter_39

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Can you post that again showing Disk 0?

It looks to be OK so maybe Windows is assuming you have a disk where none exists, thus the error.
Did you remove a disk at some time? With the DVD as E: the implication is your machine started life with C, D and a DVD.
You could change the drive letters so you have contiguous disks and see if Windows likes that.

As an aside, why is F: a logical drive when G: isn’t?

cheers, Paul

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Not sure about F: and G:. G: is just used for backups.

How do I change the drive letters? And if I do is there anything else I need to change?

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”Not enough free space on partition D”. It needs 15MB.

Your Disk Management screenshot shows System Reserved (this is the MSR partition) at 25MB. This partition is usually 40MB. Your 25MB plus the 15MB equals 40MB.

Disk Management can’t expand that partition. It would take a third party partitioning tool to resize it, which would involve taking 15MB from the OS partition, moving that 15MB of unallocated space to make a gap between the MSR partition and the OS partition, then expanding the MSR partition into that gap of unallocated space.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

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How do I change the drive letters?

If bbearren is right you won’t need to do that. Fingers crossed. You can use MiniTool Partition Wizard.
First you need to check if any storage areas have been moved to the disk you want to change. This could be “My Documents” or other “My” areas.
Open Windows Explorer and right click on each of the Documents, Music etc.
Select Properties.
The path will show where the files are located.
You will need to change the location of the files after changing the drive letter – use the “Find Target” button.
How to move files.

To change drive letters.
In Disk Management, right click on one of the disks in the top pane and select Change Drive Letter.

Backup everything first, of course.

cheers, Paul

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Sorry to interject.

Your Disk Management screenshot shows System Reserved (this is the MSR partition)

My newly installed UEFI install of W7HP does not show a MSR even though it exists, my old install on MBR does not show it either on the same GPT disk. What is going on?

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Sorry to interject.

My newly installed UEFI install of W7HP does not show a MSR even though it exists, my old install on MBR does not show it either on the same GPT disk. What is going on?

The MSR partition is quite often a hidden partition, and Windows Disk Management cannot see it. If you open an elevated Command Prompt, then open Dispart, you will be able to see it using the List Volume command, and you’ll see its “hidden” attribute as well.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

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Thanks very much for your help fellas. I got Minitool Partition Wizard and increased the size of the System Reserved partition, ran the reinstall again and everything worked perfectly. Very happy :rolleyes:

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Thanks very much for your help fellas. I got Minitool Partition Wizard and increased the size of the System Reserved partition, ran the reinstall again and everything worked perfectly. Very happy :rolleyes:

Glad it worked out, and thanks for posting your results for us.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

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Elephant stamp for bbearren!

cheers, Paul

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and you’ll see its “hidden” attribute as well.

I was just looking there and missed that.

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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In the List Volume view of Diskpart the far right column is the attributes column. Hidden volumes/partitions will have “hidden” in that column.

Did you see the partition?

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

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@bbearen fyi the system reserved partition has always been 100MB on my PC and others which I have built.

39667-Screenshot-15

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@bbearen fyi the system reserved partition has always been 100MB on my PC and others which I have built.

I’ve seen as large as 450MB. My understanding is that the minimum size is 40MB. The OP’s experience seems to bear that out:

”Not enough free space on partition D”. It needs 15MB.

His Disk Management screenshot showed 25MB, too small; the installation routine requested an additional 15MB.

Thanks very much for your help fellas. I got Minitool Partition Wizard and increased the size of the System Reserved partition, ran the reinstall again and everything worked perfectly. Very happy :rolleyes:

Larger than necessary is not a bad thing; too small is. When I converted my laptop from BIOS/MBR to UEFI/GPT, I created a 40MB MSR partition behind the EFI partition, and it was all good.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

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The MSR partition is quite often a hidden partition, and Windows Disk Management cannot see it. If you open an elevated Command Prompt, then open Dispart, you will be able to see it using the List Volume command, and you’ll see its “hidden” attribute as well.

Using W7 non uefi install looking at Uefi install on separate disk list volume does not show MSR but does show hidden EFI system partition which is visible in DiskManager. After disk is selected ‘list partition’ DOES show it. In my case it is 128 MB at offset 101 MB right after ‘system’ partition.
Still trying to get my head around all this new EFI stuff. :unsure:

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Using W7 non uefi install looking at Uefi install on separate disk list volume does not show MSR but does show hidden EFI system partition which is visible in DiskManager. After disk is selected ‘list partition’ DOES show it. In my case it is 128 MB at offset 101 MB right after ‘system’ partition.
Still trying to get my head around all this new EFI stuff. :unsure:

Yes, I should have mentioned that if you have more than one physical hard disk, in Diskpart you first use List Disk, then Select Disk, then List Volume or List Partition for the selected hard disk. If you have only one hard disk, then there’s no need to List Disk (unless you want to see your optical drive as well).

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

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Still trying to get my head around all this new EFI stuff

UEFI is easy. The boot information is stored on the motherboard and the disks are given a UUID. Booting is now via the disk UUID and specific files on said disk. Old disks are handled by the motherboard looking for MBR on the disk / USB.

cheers, Paul

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UEFI is easy. The boot information is stored on the motherboard and the disks are given a UUID. Booting is now via the disk UUID and specific files on said disk. Old disks are handled by the motherboard looking for MBR on the disk / USB.

Not quite. Secure Boot and the EFI boot sequence is launched on the motherboard. All the actual boot files are in the EFI partition, and that’s where the UUID’s are stored in the BCD (Boot Configuration Data) Store. UEFI will work with a second disk being MBR, but it won’t boot from an MBR disk unless it’s running in legacy mode. In EFI mode, it looks for an EFI partition to boot from, and if it doesn’t find an EFI partition, it will error out with “No boot device”.

The Microsoft edict to OEM’s was that Windows 8/8.1 could only be sold with Secure Boot enabled and a means of disabling Secure Boot (legacy boot). Secure Boot only works with UEFI, and UEFI with Secure Boot doesn’t work with MBR, since all the boot files in MBR are on the disk. UEFI starts the boot process in hardware on the motherboard (Secure Boot) then continues the boot process through the hard disk via the EFI partition (where to boot). This works with GPT, but not MBR. Once Windows is booted via EFI, it can read from GPT disks and MBR disks.

Windows booted via MBR can also read GPT disks, but it can’t boot from a GPT disk without an EFI partition and UEFI.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

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Just to clarify: List Volume does NOT show the MSR for me. List Partition DOES.
And I see there is an entry for Windows Boot Manager in Firmware. My desktop UEFI does not let me point it manually to a boot file my W8.1 laptop does, easy perhaps but new to me.

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Just to clarify: List Volume does NOT show the MSR for me. List Partition DOES.[/quote]
That depends on how it has been set up, and whether or not it has ever been assigned a drive letter. But that’s because of Diskpart, not EFI.

And I see there is an entry for Windows Boot Manager in Firmware. My desktop UEFI does not let me point it manually to a boot file my W8.1 laptop does, easy perhaps but new to me.
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The firmware EFI can be written to by Windows, so there can be differences from one machine to the next. That’s the “Extensible” part of “Unified Extensible Firmware Interface“.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

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That depends on how it has been set up, and whether or not it has ever been assigned a drive letter. But that’s because of Diskpart, not EFI.

I was able to assign the system partition a drive letter but not the MSR partition. Again I am in W7 looking at a non booted GPT Disk.

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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