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This article will show you how to Fix ‘Unable To Recover Your PC, System Drive Too Small’ issue. When your computer is running well, you can use a system image to make a full copy of all the files, system settings, and Windows on your computer. If your computer crashes unexpectedly or something else goes wrong, you can use this Windows system picture to get it back to working order.
System Image Recovery saves the day when a system has fallen or is about to crash. System image makes a copy of everything on the computer’s hard drive, including the operating system, system settings, apps, and other files. You can get Windows and all your info back by running the Windows System Image Recovery tool. If your system crashes quickly, you can use the system image to make a full copy of everything on your computer, including files, system settings, and Windows.
You should start by using the Windows System Image Recovery tool. But the process of getting better might have some problems. ‘Unable To Recover Your PC, System Drive Too Small’ issue was a rude error message. It may say “The system drive is too small.” So, how do you fix this annoying mistake? In this post, we’ll show you how to solve the problem.
Ways to Fix ‘Unable To Recover Your PC, System Drive Too Small’ issue
Make a USB Recovery Drive Again
It’s possible that you did something wrong during the repair process. So, I suggest that you make a USB recovery drive and then try to recover the PC again. Here’s how to do it:
In Windows 11/10, you can make a USB restore drive. The following steps should be taken:
- Insert a USB drive to PC.
- Type “create a recovery drive” in the Windows search bar and click the best matched result.
- Make sure the Back up system files to the recovery drive option is checked. Then, click the Next
- Choose a USB drive and click Next
- Read the warning and click the Next Then, the PC starts to make the USB recovery drive. This process may take around an hour and a half.
Use the USB restore drive to fix the PC. The following steps should be taken:
- Insert the USB drive to the PC to be recovered.
- Power on this PC, and then press the BIOS key (F2, Del, etc.) when the logo screen appears, so that you can enter Firmware.
- In the Firmware, set the USB drive as the first boot device. Then, click the F10 key to save changes and exit the Firmware. Then, the PC can boot from the USB recovery drive.
- Choose your keyboard layout.
- Find Recover from a drive and click it. The location of this option may vary depending on different PCs.
- You will get two options: Just remove my files and Fully clean the drive. Read the warning and click the Recover The recovery process will begin.
Delete or Format Volumes on the Target Drive
If the target disk already has partitions, those divisions could be the cause of the error. In this case, you can try to delete or reformat the disk’s sections. Here’s how to do it:
- Connect the USB recovery drive to PC. Boot the PC from the USB drive. This time, go to Troubleshoot > Advanced options > Command Prompt.
- In the window, use the following commands to delete all partitions of the target disk.
- Diskpart
- List disk
- Select disk * (* is the disk number of the target disk. You can identify the target disk by disk capacity.)
- Clean (this command will delete all partitions on the disk.)
- Close the Command Prompt window and then continue the USB recovery process.
Create a Windows Installation Media
If none of the other ways work, you can try this one. As was already said, when you recover from a USB drive, all of your personal information and apps will be lost. It’s kind of like a clean display. Then, why not just reinstall Windows (especially if you want to reinstall or recover Windows 10)?
- Step 1: Insert a USB drive to PC. Download Windows Media Creation Tool from Microsoft’s official website.
- Step 2: Run the Media Creation Tool. Accept license terms. Choose Create installation media for another PC.
- Step 3: Choose Language, Windows Edition, and Architecture. Then, click the Next button.
- Step 4: Choose USB flash drive and click the Next button. Choose a removable drive to hold Windows 10 image and then click the Next button.
- Step 5: Connect the USB drive to the PC where you want to repair/install Windows 10. Boot the PC from the USB drive. Follow the installation wizard until you get the following picture:
- Upgrade: This option will reinstall Windows but will not delete personal files.
- Custom: This option is more like recovering from a USB drive, because it allows you to delete partitions on the target disk.
Change the Minimum Required Size
Sometimes, you may make a USB recovery drive on disk A (the source disk) and then want to rescue the PC on disk B (the target disk). You can move the OS from disk A to disk B this way. But if the target disk is smaller than the source disk, you may get the message “unable to recover your PC because the system drive is too small.”
Please check how much space the source disk and the target disk have. If the target disk is smaller than the source disk, you can fix the problem by changing the minimum needed size of the target drive in the file $PBR_ResetConfig.xml when making the recovery drive. If you want to know more information about this issue Visit Official Microsoft Support site.
Please open the file system picture > sources. Then, open the $PBR_ResetConfig.xml file in Notepad, look for the MinSize> attribute, and change the number so that it is smaller than the target disk.