HP Stream Recovery

[kbrittain]

My 12 year old daughter's HP Stream that I bought her, which she now uses for e-learning has stopped connecting to the internet, just randomly. So I'm trying to just completely reset the computer to reinstall Windows, since I'm not sure if she messed with a driver or something. When I go to start the recovery, it says that it needs more space to perform the recovery. It doesn't matter which option I choose, be it the reset this pc option or the fresh start option. I've literally wiped her PC completely clean of any app she had downloaded and deleted every picture she had saved. I honestly can't delete anything else from her computer. I also can't fix the WIFI issue via any methods that have been mentioned on any other thread because this notebook doesn't have an ethernet port on it. 

Can someone help me figure out how to restore her computer to factory settings so I can get her going again? I'm beyond frustrated and she is now behind on her e-learning with school. 

Please help!

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

Is there a SWSetup folder on the C: drive?

If so you can copy that to a USB portable hard drive and delete that folder.

It contains the driver and software installation files that come with the PC, but they are not necessary for it to work.

Another thing you can do is to run the disk cleanup utility.  When you get to the disk cleanup window, click on the Cleanup system files button.

The program will run again, and when you get to the window this time, check all of the boxes to delete the unnecessary files.

The old windows update files can take up several GB of space.

If that doesn't help, then your only other option would be to clean install W10.

[kbrittain]

Hi there.

I've just tried everything you've described. When I did the disk clean up, it is still telling me I need 1.92gb of free space on the C drive. It's telling me to run the disk cleanup, copy files to an external device and uninstall programs. I've literally done all of that. There is absolutely nothing else I can remove from this computer. I can't even do the fresh start recovery because it's telling me there's not enough space to do it. I've never had a computer tell me it can't be recovered or restored because it doesn't have enough space. Granted, these stream book type computers are foreign to me, but it makes no sense when I'm trying to wipe it clean it won't let me. 

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

Here is the only option I can think of for you to try...

The problem is as you already know is that these notebooks only come with 32 GB drives.

I don't know what the PC manufacturers were thinking installing W10 64 bit on such tiny drives.

I think HP started putting 64 GB drives in their Stream notebooks after customers complained (and rightfully so).

Using another Windows PC PC, make a bootable W10 USB installation flash drive using the media creation tool at the link below.  You will need an 8 GB flash drive for this.

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

Boot from the installation media, and when you get to the part of the installation process that asks 'Where do you want to install Windows,' delete every partition on the hard drive, leaving just one partition of unallocated space.

Click next, and W10 will install.

After W10 has completed installing, you can install the drivers and available software from your Stream 11's support page.

This will maximize the amount of drive space available for a couple of programs and files.

I have a Stream 11 Pro G4 with a 64 GB eMMC drive and it only has around 20 GB of free space left on it.

I have Office 2007 standard installed, and a couple of other smaller programs, and I think that is about it.

So, if this thing had come with a 32 GB drive, it would be past full!