On a good day, one shouldn’t face any issues while upgrading or updating their Windows. However, sometimes random errors like We couldn’t update System reserved partition could appear. As a result, you cannot update or upgrade your Windows 11/10. While this error—We couldn’t update system reserved partition error installing Windows —may seem like something huge of a problem, getting rid of it is extremely easy. To help you out, we will be explaining all about it below.
Why the “We Couldn’t Update System Reserved Partition” Error Occurs?
It is a typical error that occurs while updating or upgrading Windows systems. The System Reserved partition holds essential boot files for your System that are required to start your Windows PC correctly. These are two common reasons why System reserved partition may not function as it is intended to:
First, there is a high chance that the System Reserved partition doesn’t have enough space. If it’s too full, you won’t be able to upgrade/update your PC.
Secondly, if the partition size for your System reserved is too small, it will not have proper space and won’t be able to accommodate new update files.
However, fixing both of these issues is relatively easy. All you need to do is increase the partition size using Windows’s built-in tool, Disk Management.
Fix: We Couldn’t Update System Reserved Partition Error Installing Windows 11/10
Before you free up disk space, you must determine whether your system-reserved partition is GPT or MBR. You can easily do that by following the below steps:
- Press Windows Key + X to access the Quick menu and select Terminal.
- In the Terminal, run the following command: Get-disk
- This will tell the partition style of your installed disks.
Once you have figured out what kind of scheme your system reserved partition is using, follow the below steps to increase the partition size:
1. Windows with GPT partition
If you use a GPT partition, you can delete the font files to get some extra space. To do so, follow these steps:
- Press Windows + X to access the Quick menu.
- Select Terminal (Admin) to launch it.
- Now run the following command to assign the driver letter Y to the system partition and press Enter:
mountvol y: /s
- Next, type the “Y:” to switch to the Y drive.
- Now navigate to the Fonts folder by running the following command:
cd EFI\Microsoft\Boot\Fonts
- Next, to delete the font files, run the following command:
del *.*
- Finally, confirm your action by pressing Y.
Once done, you should have enough space in the system reserved partition to complete a Windows update or upgrade.
Read: How to Delete Recovery Partition in Windows
2. Windows with MBR partition
If your partition style is MBR, then you can increase the disk space by following the below steps:
- First, press Windows Key + X to access the Quick menu.
- Select Disk Management from the list.
- Next, right-click on the System reserved partition, select Change drive letter and paths, and click Add.
- Now choose Y as the drive letter and click OK To apply the changes.
- Press Windows Key + X again and click on Terminal (Admin).
- Type “Y:” and press enter to access the drive.
- Now, run the following command to change the folder to the fonts:
cd Boot\Fonts
- Then run the following command to recover access privileges to files in the folder:
takeown /d y /r /f
- Next, save the permission to the driver by running the following command:
icacls Y:\* /save %systemdrive%\NTFSp.txt /c /t
- Now, type whoami to display the name of the current user account.
- To get access to the user account, run the following command:
icacls . /grant <the username you got from whoami>:F /t
- Now delete all the files in the folder by typing the following command and then pressing Enter:
del *.*
- Next, to restore all the permissions, run the following command:
icacls Y:\ /restore %systemdrive%\NTFSp.txt /c /t
- After that, revert the access control list (ACL) to the System by running this command:
icacls . /grant system:f /t
- Finally, give ownership of the drive back to the System by running the following command:
icacls Y: /setowner “SYSTEM” /t /c
Once done, you should have enough space in the System reserved partition. This can be quickly confirmed by checking the Disk Management console.
Read: How to Change Legacy BIOS to UEFI in Windows
Conclusion
The above methods should help you increase the System Reserved Partition size, and you can upgrade or update your Windows system. Apart from these two methods, you can rely on third-party disk management tools for a hassle-free experience.
