Need to do complete wipe/reinstall for laptop with insufficient spare disk space

[debsmusings]

I purchased a small disk laptop just for internet browsing, email and adobe reader use. It hasn't been used for couple of years and is pestering me to upgrade but I can't for lack of disk space. I simply can't free up 8 GB. (Freed up 6.5 and tried to compress files on the disk and I actually lost disk space.) So I contacted HP to find out how to just wipe out what's there and return it to a fresh state. They pointed me to the Cloud Recovery tool but the instruction there say I need 20 GB of free space which I can't do. 

I am looking for a solution based on external USB drive or thumb drive that will enable me to just wipe out whats there and do a fresh windows 10 install, preferably with the drivers for this laptop. I am reasonably technical so I don't need handholding as much as needing a recipe to follow (preferably with links).

Thanks - D-

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

Use the cloud recovery tool on another Windows PC that has 20 GB of free space to create the bootable recovery media.

The PC is supported by the HP cloud recovery tool which you can use to create a bootable USB recovery drive that will reinstall W10, the drivers and the software that originally came with the PC.

Here is an info link for how to use the utility:  You will need a 32 GB USB flash drive to create the recovery media with.

HP Consumer PCs - Using the HP Cloud Recovery Tool in Windows 11 and 10 | HP® Customer Support

Since you have to use another PC to install the tool on, you will need to enter the product number for your PC to create the recovery media, which is:   X7S44UA#ABA.

Your other option would be to install the current version of W10 (22H2) by making a bootable USB installation flash drive with the media creation tool from the link below...you will probably have to use another PC to create the media with since your notebook is short on free space.

Download Windows 10 (microsoft.com)

Boot from the installation media and when you get to the screen 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 notebook's support page.

HP Stream - 14-ax010nr (ENERGY STAR) Software and Driver Downloads | HP® Customer Support