Windows 10: how to restore system image from internal hdd d: and restore it to internal ssd c: ?

hello so i was in windows insider dev channel , wanted to move to stable version bcoz my pc kept crashing bcoz of some memory management realised later that it was RAM later i partitioned my 1tb hdd and stored my backup of c drive and system image backup in that. and then i clean installed windows and then booted from usb . so later when i went to troubleshoot options it does recognises my system image backup but cannot restore it bcoz of system repair disc or something idk and then i researched about it and then booted with my usb but this it recognises my backup and shows this error ima

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System Image Restore Failed (0xc0380013: there is not enough usable space for this operation)

I backed up C drive (Windows 11 OS) of my 256GB internal SSD and D drive of my 1TB internal HDD into one system image in an external HDD, and reinstalled Windows on my internal SSD. I formatted the internal HDD, so no partitions on it now. But when I try to recover the system image from the external HDD using Windows Recovery, I get the error "system image restore failed. 0xc0380013: there is not enough usable space for this operation". But there is like 256GB+1TB free space on internal SSD and internal HDD combined. What is causing this, and how do I fix it to recover files from the system image successfully? Please help me, I need those files immediately!

 

System Image Restore Drive Letters

I have the latest Windows 10 with the latest updates.

After a BSOD I was about to do a System Image Restore from my 2nd internal HDD (Z I noticed that although the correct image file/folder was displayed, it wrongly shown as being on D:

(D: would be my external HDD which was not connected at the time of the backup, nor the time of the restore.) The "This PC" window correctly displays only the C: and Z: hard drives.

I decided not to risk it. (I've done system images restores before on Windows 10 from that internal drive and could swear that the drive letter of the image was displayed correctly.) Can anyone please tell me what's happened, and whether it would be safe
to proceed with the restore?

Where is the W10 troubleshooter/restore program getting its idea of drive letters from? And does it check and compare drive letters during the restoration process?

 

System Image Restore Failed (0xc0380013: there is not enough usable space for this operation)

I used the System and Restore (Windows 7) feature from Control Panel, as suggested by many YouTube videos. Since I have installed many programs on the D drive for saving space on C, the backup feature required to include D drive too for creating the system image.

In the Restore (WinRE) process, it asked whether to format the partitions of SSD and HDD drives and match the partition layout of the backed up image. I agreed , and in the very next step it showed this error.