The fully penetrating virtual large-diameter well method and the fully penetrating horizontal collector gallery method have been widely used to estimate the mine inflow. However, the water inflow was overestimated due to the limitation of application condition. The predicted errors of mine water inflow were systematically evaluated in the condition that the partially penetrated virtual large-diameter well and horizontal collector gallery were inappropriately generalized to the fully penetrating ones based on the measured mine water inflow in a mine. Furthermore, the sensitivity of the parameters in the partially penetrated models was analyzed. The results illustrated that the estimated mine water inflow using the partially penetrated horizontal collector gallery method accounts for 105.24% higher of the measured value, whereas that the partially penetrated virtual large-diameter well accounts for 127.24%. Moreover, the model based on the fully penetrating method, including the horizontal collector and the virtual large-diameter well, respectivoly account for 149.92% and 344.08%. It was concluded that the partially penetrated horizontal collector gallery method was more applicable to estimate the mine inflow in this mine or the mine with a similar geology condition. In addition, the sensitivity analysis for the parameters in the partially penetrated virtual large-diameter well method showed that the hydraulic conductivity had the greatest influence on the estimation of the water inflow.