How to wipe a HP Stream Laptop

[Althalus]

As I am unable to free up enough space for last years big Windows update, and thus rendering the laptop insecure, I was hoping there was a way to clear the storage on the laptop instead so I could put Ubuntu on it or some other smaller OS.  However, my specialist tried using DBAN, which was unable to find the hard drive.  After researching they determined that the laptop does not have a traditional hard drive.  Does anyone know of a way to completely wipe that drive?

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi:

That is correct.   Your notebook has an eMMC drive.  Not a traditional hard drive.

You should be able to clean install W10 as follows.  During the installation process, delete all of the partitions, so you just have the one partition.

You can make a W10 USB flash drive installer with the Microsoft Media Creation Tool, using an 8 GB flash drive using another Windows PC, if your PC is not working.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

If you are asked to enter a product key during the installation process, select the 'I don't have a product key' option, and W10 will install and automatically activate once you are connected to the internet.

Here are the steps to create the W10 USB flash drive installer...

1. Select Download tool now, and select Run.
2. If you agree to the license terms, select Accept.
3. On the What do you want to do? page, select Create installation media for another PC, and then select Next.

4. Select the language, edition, and architecture (64-bit or 32-bit) for Windows 10. You want 64 bit.

5. Select which media you want to use:
6. USB flash drive.  Plug in a blank USB flash drive with at least 8GB of space. Any content on the flash drive will be deleted. 

Then you can reinstall the drivers and available software from the PC's support page.

Also see this tutorial from Huffer that will help you squeeze the most space out of the drive.

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Hardware-and-Upgrade-Questions/HP-Stream-11-2017/m-p/6840816#...

[Althalus]

Thank you, I have seen this advice before, however no one suggested deleting the partitions.  This worked for me and now I am downloading all of the windows updates with 14GBs of free storage.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

To keep the drive as free of useless files as possible, run the disk cleanup utility every month, and then every 3 months or so, run it, but click on the cleanup system files box on the lower left side of the window, and then check all of the boxes to delete the files.

I have discovered that Windows stores as much as 5 GB of old windows update files which can be deleted by clicking on the cleanup system files button.

I was flabbergasted.

Also delete the SW Setup folder on the C:\ drive after you install all of the drivers and software you needed.

That is where the driver installation files unpack to, and you don't need that folder once the drivers/software have been installed.