Replace Hard Drive in HP 14-ax040wm Notebook

[bbycole]

Hi, I'm having an issue where my Notebook does not have enough storage space to download and install the latest Windows update. There is nothing else I can delete to free up more space. Is this laptop capable of having the internal Hard Drive replaced to be upgraded?

[visruth]

Unfortunately No.

eMMC storage stick is soldered on to the motherboard just like RAM in your HP Stream 14 ax000 model series.

Manual: http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c05227771

You cannot upgrade the storage capacity nor put another bootable hard drive as there is no HDD bay available on the board for the same

What I could suggest you do is,

Try the below suggestion to clean install Windows 10 (latest feature upgrade build) in this budget notebook,
Follow option 1 here: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/2376-create-bootable-usb-flash-drive-install-windows-10-a.html

This will allow you create UEFI bootable Windows 10 (build 1709) USB using Microsoft windows media creation tool from another working computer

Next disable secure boot from BIOS, plug in the installation USB, change boot order to USB then proceed with clean installation of Windows 10

Disable secure boot:
https://support.hp.com/in-en/document/c04784866

Change boot order to USB: https://support.hp.com/in-en/document/c01443326

Clean install:
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/1950-clean-install-windows-10-a.html

Windows will be automatically activated on installation while connected to internet

Additional drivers from here:

https://support.hp.com/ph-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-stream-14-ax000-laptop-pc/12499221

[Comray]

It has a slot for a sandisk SSD card. they come in many sizes now. leave one in laptop and use it for storage.as drive 😧