Is it safe to resize partitions to allow Windows 10 to update?

Question

I am using an older Vostro 1320 with Windows 10 Home 64-bit. The hard drive (a Toshiba 1TB SSD) has four partitions, in order: a 40 MB Fat32 System Resource partition (disk 0 partition 1), a 29 GB recovery partition (D:), a 900 GB primary partition (C:), and a 532 MB recovery partition (disk 0 partition 4). Windows 10 requires 13 MB free disk space in the system resource partition (SRP), and mine only has 12.7 MB free, so Win 10 won't update.

Is it safe to temporarily reduce the size of the D drive so I can expand the SRP to allow enough space for Windows 10 to update?

Thank you,

Terry

jphughan · Accepted Answer

@Terry Morse If the partitions are in the order you describe, you won't be able to simply shrink your Windows partition or your Windows Recovery and immediately allocate that free space to your System Resource partition, since freed up space appears AFTER the partition you shrank, not before it. And since the Windows Recovery partition has its own minimum free space requirements for Windows 10 feature updates, that might create a different problem there. Ideally you'd want to shrink your main Windows partition to create the necessary additional capacity.

The default System Resource partition size (called an EFI System Partition or ESP on UEFI-based systems) is 100 MB. I'm not sure why yours is so small, but if you want to fix it, you'll need to use repartitioning tools that can shrink your partition and then "shift" partitions around so that the free space you created is immediately after the System Resource partition, at which point you can extend that partition into that free space. Those tools exist, and despite yet another of many false claims by @Mary G, they are safe to use and in fact are used all the time. Here is one popular and free option. But I would still recommend creating a backup of your system first, ideally a full disk image backup. Then give your System Resource partition 100 MB total size and do NOT make that a temporary change. Leave it that way since it should have been that way from the beginning.

(Also, your System Recovery partition that you say is Drive D shouldn't have a drive letter assigned, so you should use Diskpart or DIsk Management to remove that so it goes back to being hidden, but I guess that's a separate issue.)

Mary G · Answer

No it is not safe to try to do that even if you could--you cannot. Windows Update needs space on your main boot drive that has 900 gb. It has nothing to do with hidden Recovery partitions. Windows Update changes/updates Windows and that's on the main drive. Update needs GB's not tiny MB's. This is from Microsoft-

Make sure that your device has enough space. Your device requires at least 16 GB of free space to upgrade a 32-bit OS, or 20 GB for a 64-bit OS. If your device has a small hard drive, you may need to insert a USB drive to update it.

More help with updating-- https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4089834/windows-10-troubleshoot-problems-updating?ocid=20SMC10164Windows10

nyc10036 · Answer

@Terry Morse

There is no reason you should not have enough space for a Windows update with a 1 TB hard drive. You have too much junk on the hard drive!

Run Disk Cleaner app; be sure to select/click System Files checkbox.

Reboot.

jphughan · Answer

@Mary G  and @nyc10036 , there are cases where Windows feature updates won't install based on the amount of free space that exists on the EFI System Partition and/or the Windows Recovery partition, and the minimum requirements can indeed be MB rather than GB.  In those cases, simply freeing up space on the C partition is not going to solve anything.  So Mary G, as is practically the norm when I see posts of yours, you are simply incorrect yet again by claiming here that, 'It has nothing to do with hidden Recovery partitions', so once again I will suggest that you either bring your technical knowledge current or else stop trying to help others, because bad information is often worse than no information.  Or at the very least, say something like 'My understanding is' rather than speaking in terms of absolute fact when you're wrong.

nyc10036 · Answer

@jphughan

The Vostro 1320 is circa 2009.

The hard drive is currently:

40 MB FAT32 System Resource partition (disk 0 partition 1)

29 GB recovery partition (D:)

900 GB primary partition (C:)

532 MB recovery partition (disk 0 partition 4)

As I understand it Terry wants to resize the 29 GB recovery partition hoping to expand the 900 GB.

That is the last I am going to say on this matter.

The stage is all yours @jphughan . I am out.

.

jphughan · Answer

@nyc10036  I noticed that afterward and edited my reply accordingly, although it doesn't really change the answer I gave, because free space is created as a result of shrinking a partition appears at the end of that partition, not at the beginning.  So regardless of which partition the OP wants to shrink to free up the necessary additional space, some sort of partition moving utility is going to be involved.  The only alternative would be performing an image backup of the whole disk and then restoring it with different partition sizing, but that seems like six of one, half a dozen of the other to me.

Terry Morse · Answer

The main issue is to enlarge the System Resource partition. It could be at the expense of the main (900 GB) partition. The minimum I need to eke out is 0.3 MB, but I would follow jphughan's advice and bring the SRP up to 100 MB to avoid this problem in the future. Any recommendations of currently-available alternatives to Partition Magic would be welcome.

Terry

Terry Morse · Answer

I bought the laptop in question, a Dell Vostro 1320, in 2009. It shipped with Windows Vista, which I upgraded to Windows 7, and a 512 GB hard drive, which I replaced with the 1 TB solid-state drive it currently has last January. I used Acronis TrueImage to migrate the contents of the old drive to the new one. The order and size of the partitions "is what it is." I didn't change the order, merely allotted the extra space on the new drive to the c: partition. 29 MB may have been sufficient back then. This is the first time it has been an issue.

The last time I had to do any partition management was decades ago, on a Gateway desktop. I used Partition Magic, which allowed me to easily resize and move partitions to free up space at the front end of a partition. Partition Magic is apparently no longer available. Is there any currently available software you would recommend that can do this?

I have created a backup.

Thank you,

Terry

jphughan · Answer

@Terry Morse  My first reply to you specifically contained a link to MiniTool Partition Wizard, which is free, does what you need, and is still actively maintained.

Terry Morse · Answer

Thank you. I missed the reference amongst all the ensuing discussion. Terry

jphughan · Answer

@Terry Morse  Glad it worked, but there's no such thing as an MBR vs. UEFI partition.  MBR is a partition layout scheme that applies to the entire disk (the other option is GPT), and UEFI is a boot method (the other method is Legacy BIOS).  Neither is a partition type.  But if you have an MBR disk because your system is booting in Legacy BIOS mode, then newer Windows versions did set up a small System partition in front of the C drive, even though that isn't technically necessary on Legacy BIOS systems in order to allow Windows to boot.

Terry Morse · Answer

@jphughanprovided the solution that worked. To make everything clear, the System Resource Partition is an MBR partititon, not UEFI. When I bought the laptop in 2009, 29 MB was probably adequate. I used MiniTool Partition Wizard Free to free up 71 MB from the 900 GB c: partition, shift the partition, and add the 71 MB to the SRP, bringing it up to 100 MB. This was sufficient to allow the update to succeed. Many thanks to @jphughan for the assistance.

Terry

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Is it safe to resize partitions to allow Windows 10 to update?

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