Both "System reserved" and "C" partition cloned to external HDD: boot?

read the error message! you wanna backup "system reserved" as well because it is part of the boot process. It's less then 500MB so at least 50MB free space is needed.

What you can do:

• I assume "system reserved" is before OS partition. See "disk management"
• Shrink OS partition a bit. move partition to the right, so create unused space on the left
• enlarge "system reserved" to about 400MB
• perform a "startup repair" through booting from "system repair disk" if system doesn't boot

Do all resizing, moving using free "partition wizard" for example.

other method is delete "system reserved" partition. it's only used as bootmanager and bootmenu. Also for bitlocker but you don't use that I assume. It's very easy to move bootstuff to OS-partition. If you want that, please tell me

firmos said:

mjf said:

firmos said:

I do have "System Reserved" partition (thought, that every Windows 7 system has one of these): its size is (by default) 100 MB; 30 % of it is free.

Your first screenshot suggests system reserved has used 30% and has 70% free. If this is the case then system reserved shouldn't be the problem. System reserved needs 50MB or more for shadow copy storage.

You're not mistaken ... at the time of OP it had 70 % free ... now, it has only 30 % (32 % to be precise) of free space. What could have caused this radical change?

The only things I've done in-between is use the following backup/imaging tools: (1) Windows' built-in "Create a system image" tool, (2) Macrium and (3) EaseUS ... neither of those should change the System partition, right?

Oh, I did also follow through these two official "solutions" from (4) Microsoft and (5)Macrium.

Kaktussoft, I'm weary to manually dabble with the "System Reserved" partition ... isn't there any official MS tool that remedies this problem (surely, this problem isn't as rare)?

It shouldn't change the "system reserved" partition. But win7 create a "snapshot" also on "system reserverd" when doing a system image backup. Macrium uses windows snapshot functions, easus... I don't know.

Use easybcd to copy bootmgr and bootmenu from "system reserved" to OS-partition. It also marks OS-partition as active.

It's just a copy! try to boot. Wanna go back to old situation... just mark "system reserved" active.

If all is fine, you can delete "system reserved".

perform:
vssadmin list shadows
in Elevated Command Prompt
And post output. I think "system reserved" has restore points. They should be temporary and only active during backup

1. Right click on 'My Computer'.
2. Select 'Manage'.
3. Select the 'Services' tree node.
4. Right click on 'Volume Shadow Copy'
5. Select Properties
6. Change the startup type to 'Manual'

Macrium says Automatic but that's incorrect!! Default is Manual

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Changing the Boot Partition

One feature that our users requested quite often for a few years was the ability to easily change the boot partition with EasyBCD. EasyBCD 2.0+ offers the ability to change the Windows boot drive with a single click.


When to change the boot partition:

• If you want to delete the XP partition in a XP-Vista dual-boot where XP came first
• If you want to move your boot files to a newer faster/larger hard drive
• If you want to move the boot files away from a partition in preparation for deletion

With EasyBCD, this is made particularly easy and can be accessed from the "BCD Backup/Repair" page:



Upon selecting the "Change boot drive" you'll be prompted to select which letter you'd like to use as the new boot partition. When you confirm the selection, EasyBCD will automatically:

• Install the BOOTMGR bootloader to the selected partition
• Make the selected partition active
• Install the bootloader to both the bootsector and the MBR of the selected partition
• Copy all entries from the old boot partition to the newly-selected one
• Update partition references to work with the new boot partition

EasyBCD will not delete or remove boot files from the current boot partition. As a result, you may revert to it without difficulty or dataloss but you will also need to remove them yourself at a later time.
If the partition which is to take over control of the boot is on a different HDD from the current boot partition, you will also need to change your BIOS to put the new drive before the old one in the boot sequence, otherwise the old (untouched) boot files will continue to be in control. This obviously does not apply if the two partitions share a HDD. The switch of the "active" status will do everything needed in that case.