HP Stream troubles with Storage and error messages

[AlisonF1]

HI, 
I am having trouble with my husband's HP Stream. It only has 32 g of memory and he is at capacity. (506 mb left of 28.2 gb).
The machine is a few years old and came loaded with I believe Windows 7 or 8. I was able to upgrade it to Windows 10 when the free install came out although I had to install from a usb. There is no memory left as indicated. It was acting very strange: the monitor display was sideways and I kept getting error messages of all kinds. The windows buttons and search bar do not work and it would not pick up any wireless connections other than the one it was last logged into.
I did a little research online and got it running by deleting almost everything in Programs I could possibly delete I think. That freed up the 506mg. I was also able to run Windows Defender and Compressed the C drive. Now the error messages are gone, the screen is right, and it does pick up other wireless connections. But I figure I will be right back to this problem as soon as something takes up just a little bit of space.

Is there anything else I could possible do to gain more memory. I was going to try to do a clean install of Windows 10 but I do not have enough memory to do so.

I was wondering if when I upgraded to Windows 10, could the old Windows program possibly be still on this machine taking up some memory?
I tried to do a recovery and I cannot do it because it says there are no restore points or not able to do a recovery. 

I know 32 Gbs is not alot and truly he does not use this for much other than email and Facebook. There are no saved files, pictures, music or anything. I would like to get it running in somewhat decent shape for the little he needs it for.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks,

[WAWood]

@AlisonF1 

Let's first get our terms straight so we're both taling about the same thing ...

The term "memory" refers to the system memory sticks that are present in your PC. This can range from 2G, to 16GB or more -- depending on the capacity and number of sticks installed. This value does NOT grow or shrink over time.

The term "disk space" refers to the amount of used and free space on formatted areas, known as partitions, on your disk drive. The use space grows, and the free space shrinks, as files get written to the disk drive.

The differences are very important because dealing with shortages in memory or disk space are very different issues.

I believe what we are talking about in your case is "disk space" not "memory".

Thus, here are some things you can do to recover some of the disk space:
http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/3012-disk-cleanup-open-use-windows-10-a.html
http://winaero.com/blog/how-to-clean-up-winsxs-folder-in-windows-10/

Also, the community Win10 Forums has the following suggestions:
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/83441-free-up-drive-space-windows-10-a.html

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi, @AlisonF1 

Run the disk cleanup utility.  When you get to the disk cleanup window, click on the cleanup system files button on the lower left side of the window.  The program will run again and when you get to the disk cleanup window, check all of the boxes to delete the files.  If there are previous Windows installations, they will show up there as well as old windows update files, which I have found take a ton of space...up to 5 GB! 

Be patient as the cleanup system files process takes a long time--especially if you have gigabytes of old Windows update files.

Now, if that doesn't work, see my solution to the problem at the link below...delete all of the partitions on the hard drive, leaving one partition left.  Then you should have plenty of free space to reinstall W10.

I also believe that you will need to 'uncompress' the drive before attempting to reinstall W10.

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Boot-and-Lockup/reset-HP-Stream-with-out-a-admin-password-and...

[AlisonF1]

You are right about the disc storage. That is what is causing the problem.

Thanks, I will give some of the suggestions a try tomorrow and post if anything works.

[AlisonF1]

. Hopefully one of the suggestins will help me. 

Thanks for your quick response.

I will post if anything works.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

[AlisonF1]

HI again, I did some one the things you suggested. I cleaned everything I could clean, I beieve there is only 1 partition left, and I now have 900 mb of storage left.

 I tried to run the Media Tool download.

I at least, got to the screen where it begins to load the Windows 10 program. But it does not give me an option to choose a USB. It only says that I need 8 gb s of storage and then closes.

The other thing you mentioned was to Compress and you sent me a link to read about it. But I did not understand how to do it. Here is what was explained:

-----------------------------------------

Immediately after install the drive held about 15 gigs of data. I then used the "Compact OS' command to compress the drive. You open an elevated command prompt and type:

Compact.exe /CompactOS:always

Takes a few minutes, reboot and you are down to 10 gigs used out of 28 or so. 

I then turned off hibernation and set the swap file to be a constant 1 gig rather than the default 2 gigs the system was using and turned off system restore services. 

setting swap file to constant 1 gig

------------------------------------------

I have it running so it does go on the internet. The windows  button is still not working nor is the search bar. 

Can I turn anything else off so that the storage will remain at about 900 mbs? 

Otherwise, I give up and surrender... haha,, I don't know but my husband breaks everything he touches when dealing with technology... I think it is hopeless!

Alison

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi, Alison:

Do you have another Windows PC that you can use to create the W10 installation media on?

If you do, make the W10 installation media on the other PC, plug it into your Stream's USB port, turn on the PC, tap the ESC key at the beginning of the HP welcome screen to get the menu of options.

Select the F9 boot options menu, and from that, select the USB flash drive and press the Enter key.

Then the PC should boot from the installation media and when you get to the screen that asks where do you want to install Windows, there is where you can delete all of the partitions on the hard drive, and just leave one to install W10 on.

You click on the X Delete key to delete all of the partions, leaving just one.

[AlisonF1]

Thank you. I will give that a try,,, tomorrow.  Will let youknow how it works out. I did manage to delete some of the bloatware from HP and gave me a few more mb s. 

Thanks for your help... Hopefully it will work... Otherwise Asta La Vista! My husband,,, I may keep the computer!!! hahaha

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Anytime.

Glad to have been of assistance.