Not enough free space for upgrade / update and or recovery

[MichelS199]

Hi 

I have a HP notebook with 32 GB of MMC memory as HDD. This momory is full. Currently i have no other program installed next to windows 10. I have 6 Gb of free space left and this is not enough for a recovery. 

I've used a lot of the free space options, clean tempfiles, clean disk and also reduce space winSxS folder and stil there is not enough room. 

Does eny one have a tip or something, cause this way the laptop is pretty useless and no longer secure. 

with kind regards 

Michel  

[Riddle_Decipher]

@MichelS199

Thank you for posting on HP Forums, 

Riddle_Decipher is at your service. 

As I understand you have a low disk space and need help with upgrade/update of windows,

I'd like to thank you for the detailed description of your concern,

 as you have ensured I don't have to ask any more questions, that said, here are a few simple steps to resolve your concern:

Follow the below steps to resolve Low Disk Space issues: 

• Run the Disk Cleanup tool, and then at the bottom of the window that pops up, click on "Clean up system files". Check everything, hit OK, and let it run. You will free up several GB for sure. 

• Another thing to do is disable hibernate file. Run CMD as Administrator, and type the following: 

• powercfg hibernate off 

• Enjoy your extra space! 

For a related link on HP Forums: Click here (Though the header/title may be different, the steps will help resolve your concern). 

Resolving Low Disk Space Errors: Click here  

Keep me posted,

If the information I've provided was helpful, 

give us some reinforcement by clicking the solution and kudos buttons, 

that'll help us and others see that we've got the answers!

Good Luck.

[MichelS199]

@Riddle_Decipher 

Thanks for your support. Fortunaly all your advise didn't help. I also tried the links you've profided .

The main issue is the lack of space to do anything with this computer and it's OS. 

I cant restore becasuse it needs 10 gieg of free space for that, I cant update, because it needs more space for that. 

I've tried booting from a USB stick in order to change OS but somehow the bootsequence won't go to the flashdrive and just keeps on searching on the EFI part of the harddisk. 

Perhaps you can help with that last part. How can I install a OS from the flash drive. 

with kind regards and a merry chrtismas. 

Michel 

[Riddle_Decipher]

@MichelS199

Thank you for responding,

It's great to have you back 😉

That's quite strange, as the steps provided were to remove unnecessary features and create free space,

To serve your purpose, however, if you've done all the steps and yet the issue persists, you may go ahead with reinstalling windows from the HP Recovery media, please note that HP does not recommend or support using retail copies of windows and also, that the usage of HP Recovery Media would format the drive entirely, so create a back up of all your personal data and then reinstall the windows.

Click here for instruction on reinstalling windows,

However, if you don't have a recovery media: Click here for details on obtaining one.

Alternatively, you can Contact HP to get the discs as well:

HP Support can be reached by clicking on the following link:  

* Open link:  www.hp.com/contacthp/

* Enter Product number or select to auto detect

* Scroll down to "Still need help? Complete the form to select your contact options"

* Scroll down and click on HP contact options - click on Get a Case & phone number.

They will be happy to assist you immediately. 

If the unit is under warranty repair services under the manufacturer's warranty will be free of charge.

If you would like to thank me for my efforts to help you, 

feel free to give me a virtual high-five by clicking the 'Thumbs Up' icon below, 

Followed by clicking on the "Accept as solution".

Have a great day!

[MichelS199]

@Riddle_Decipher

Again a very clear answer form your part. You can tell you work at HP. 

The problem is Windows 10 grows becomes a little bit overweight during it's livespan. 

As the laptop only has a 32 GB hdd drive which also contains a seperate partition for windows restore and windows boot. Therfore only 28 GB remains. The windows folders Windows System and Windows SxS take up nearly 20GB with windows OS files. 

The problem with this laptop is that the HDD is stuck to the motherboard, i believe it's MMC memory. If it was any standard HDD, I could replace it. Let's just say this laptop has a couple of features, 32GB mmc drive and windows10, which will lead to issues in the long run. 

When i try to do a restore of windows, clean disk install, the restore program says i need 10 GB of free space in order to complete te procedure. It doesn't matter if i try the restore via de HP support tool or via the bootmenu. 

So i took it one step further. I took the sotware list and removed alsmost everty thing. Even virus scanner and all the pre installed stuff. This and gave me between 8 and 9 GB of free space. This turned out te be just enough for a restore. 

After a restore windows and all preinstalled software only took 10 GB 

So a little determination can go a long way

Thanks for all your help.  

[The_Fossette]

@MichelS199

I am the The_Fossette. It looks like you were interacting with @Riddle_Decipher, but he is out of the office today so I'll take over from here.

I am glad to hear that you were able to install the Windows on our computer.

In future, you can try the below steps to install the Windows updates or the Windows on the computer.

Hardware you'll need

Before you can install Windows 10 on a device with low free storage space, you'll need a few things:

• A second PC to create a bootable drive.
• Two empty USB flash drives, each with at least 16GB in size.

• Two free USB ports on your device.

  • If your device has a Micro-USB port, then you'll need a USB On-The-Go (OTG) cable to adapt the Micro-USB port to a standard USB port.
  • If you only have one free USB port, you'll also need a basic USB hub with a least two ports .

How to create an installation drive for Windows 10 updates

For this process, you'll need a USB flash drive with the latest installation files of Windows 10, which you can create using the Media Creation Tool.

To create a bootable media, do the following:

1. Connect one of your USB flash drives to a PC other than the one you're trying to upgrade.
2. Head over to the Microsoft support website to download the Media Creation Tool.
3. Click the Download tool now button.
4. Double-click the MediaCreationTool.exe file to launch the utility.
5. Select the Create installation media for another PC option.

6. Click Next to continue.

   

7. Select your language, edition, and architecture.

   Quick Tip: If you're trying to update a small tablet with low storage, it's likely to be using a 32-bit architecture. You can quickly check the device architecture by going to Settings > Devices > About and double-checking the System type information.

8. Select the USB flash drive option.

9. Click Next.

   

10. Select your USB flash drive from the list.

11. Click Next.

    

12. Click Finish to complete the task.

How to install a Windows 10 update from a flash drive

To install feature updates of Windows 10, do the following:

1. If necessary for your device, connect the USB OTG cable and/or the USB hub.
2. Connect both the USB flash drive with the Windows 10 installation files and the other empty USB flash drive.
3. Double-click the Setup.exe file to launch the Windows 10 installation from the USB flash drive.

4. Select the Keep personal files and apps option to only update your system.

   

5. If you get the "Windows needs more space" option, click the Choose another drive or attach an external drive with 10GB available link.
6. Select your empty USB flash drive to serve as temporary storage.

7. Click Refresh.

   

8. Click Install.

   

9. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation process as necessary.

   Note: Some devices may only have a single Micro-USB port that is used for both charging and data transfer, which can make the battery-draining update process somewhat tricky when you also need that port to connect your USB drives. Your device will reboot during the installation process, after the first reboot you will no longer need either flash drive or the USB hub to finish, so you can unplug those and connect your power cable. Of course, if your PC has a dedicated power port, you can just leave everything (power included) plugged in throughout the whole process.

After the installation completes and after a few black screens and reboots, you'll be back to your desktop once again. Because this is technically an upgrade, you won't need to go through the out-of-box experience to finish setting up Windows 10.

To simply say thanks, please click the "Thumbs Up" button to give me a Kudos to appreciate my efforts to help. If this helps, please mark this as “Accepted Solution” as it will help several others with the same issue to get it resolved without hassles.

Take care.

Cheers!