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Windows 10 "Cannot update system reserved partition"

I've been using an earlier version of Windows 10 preview for a couple of weeks, and have been pleased with it. However when I tried to upgrade to a new drop, I was greeted with a cryptic message: "Cannot update the system reserved partition".


A little bit of research internally and on the Web exposed that the message appears when the system partition is full. To see the details of your drive: partitions, volumes and all, the command "diskpart" is your friend.





First list the volumes on the disk you're interested in:

diskpart> list volume


Some of the volumes might not have a drive letter associated with them. You can assign drive letters to the volumes you'd like to explore through


diskpart> select volume=N


Then assigning a drive letter through


diskpart> assign letter=E



Now you can look around the drive and figure out how to create some free space for the install, and all will be well.

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