Windows 8 Image Recovery Disk Too Small
I had a 128 GB SSD and a 1.5 TB HDD in my Windows 8.1 computer. I took a backup by using the built in tools to create a system image on my removable HDD.
I took the 128 GB SSD out, put a 256 GB SSD in, and now I want to restore from my recovery Image. I use my Windows 8 disk to book to System Image Recovery, I select the backup off my removable HDD, and now I get the below error.
The system image recovery failed.
Error Details: the disk that is set as active in the BIOS is too small to recover the original system disk. Replace the disk with a larger one and retry the restore operation. (0x80042407)
I think Windows is confused, because the backup image is of both the 128 GB SSD and the 1.5 TB HDD, and I want to restore it to the 256 GB SSD and the 1.5 TB HDD. I think Windows is trying to restore all of it to the SSD or something like that. What can I do?
mason
Kamil Maciorowski2 Answers
Since I had the original SSD and a USB 4 bay HDD enclosure, I hooked that up the my laptop and cloned the 128GB SSD onto the 256GB SSD. Then I used Windows 7 disk management to extend the partition to use the full 256GB. I put the 256GB SSD into my desktop and used the command line from the Windows 8 install media to fix the MBR and then ran startup repair. I was able to successfully boot back.
I learned from this not to rely on Windows system images. I should have cloned the drive in the first place.
The error means you already have the max number of allowed partitions:
//
// MessageId: VDS_E_PARTITION_LIMIT_REACHED
//
// MessageText:
//
// The number of partitions has reached the limit on a disk.
//
#define VDS_E_PARTITION_LIMIT_REACHED ((HRESULT)0x80042407L)
Remove some partitions before doing a restore.
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