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I just installed Windows 10 on my new PC build. I have a PCIe M.2 SSD as well as a SATA HDD installed. In hindsight I probably should have disconnected the HDD until Windows was installed on the SSD. Now I have a System Reserved partition on my HDD, as well as two other unallocated partitions. One of the other ones I can format and use, the other I can't touch. I can give the System Reserved partition a drive letter but can't delete the volume there either. Even DISKPART will not touch this drive (output: Virtual Disk Service error: Clean is not allowed on the disk containing the current boot, system, pagefile, crashdump or hibernation volume).

Note that there is nothing in this system reserved partition.

Is there anything I can do to rectify this without having to fully wipe and reinstall Windows on the SSD? I'm not even sure that reinstalling Windows on the SSD with the HDD disconnected will fix it... It's already set up as a locked system volume. Is there a Windows 10 system protection feature that can be disabled to workaround this?

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  • Update: Since I hadn't really done much with my computer yet after installing Windows, I decided to just reinstall. I booted up from the Windows USB, used DISKPART to wipe the HDD, and then reinstalled with the HDD disconnected. I had to reformat the SDD into GPT mode, that's why it was creating partitions on the HDD to begin with, and then it worked.
    – Johonn
    Commented Aug 21, 2020 at 22:34

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There might be an easier way than trying to get throught under Windows - try to use the tool GParted Live.

Download ISO image from the link above and extract it to a USB stick using Rufus.

In Rufus, just select the USB stick, where do you want to extract ISO to and choose the ISO image. Leave other options default.

Then reboot PC and boot from this USB stick.

Although Gparted is based on Linux, it is a graphical tool and is intuitive for Windows users, even when they are not familiar with Linux. A nice walktrough including screenshots is in Gparted web help section, starting from chapter "Booting GParted Live".

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  • Thanks. I ended up resolving by reinstalling Windows as in my comment on my original post.
    – Johonn
    Commented Aug 21, 2020 at 22:32

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