HP Stream 13 running out of storage

[Elkong]

I have this 6-month old HP Stream 13, with the usual 2 GB RAM and 32GB solid state storage.

The recovery partition is stil there, which leaves about 21 GB left on the main C: drive. At this point WIndows is taking all but 3GB, using up 18GB.

What do we do here? Is it that this product will be 100% unusable in another 3 months due to Windows updates?

Does HP have any responsibility on these laptops at all?

We've tried CleanManager, Driver Store Explorer and most of the suggestions in this thread

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Operating-Systems-and-Software/hp-stream-running-out-of-space-...

Nothing left to try that we know, so what now? 3 GB left because of C:\Windows, 1 GB or so from MS-Office, close to another GB symantec antivirus, Windows Defender takes another chunk and we're down to nothing. We had to disable hibernation.

Is it ok to remove the Recovery Partition or is it true what I read about Windows actually using it? We've copied it into a USB drive.

It seems like this is one of those products that would run great with no software at all, but it's just that we got it to run programs on it.

Any ideas here?

[Anonymous]

I have a Stream 11 which is the same hardware only smaller screen. The issue you have about storage is basically this. The small SSD drive was so small that Windows was installed using a form of boot called WimBoot. Its basically this, the restore partition is also the image of Windows that the computer uses to boot Windows. So to answer how you delete the restore partion? You cannot. So unless you can free up space or use the "cloud" for storage which this kind of notebook was designed for. I suggest you use the SD card slot and buy a 8 GB card or bigger and use that for files. You cannot load programs from a SD card, but you can store personal files. The other option is to use a Flash drive. 

Also, down the road you will have problems upgrading to Windows 10 with so little free space on the main drive. You will be asked to use a SD card or Flash drive to be able to upgrade to Win 10.  Now that said, you still have 3GB of space left and its possible you could run disk cleanup and be able to delete some stuff to free up a bit more space. For personal files 3 GB is still a lot of space left for documents, pictures and smaller files. Obviously installing many more programs would prablably take up that space much faster. For me, I basically transfered a lot of older stuff into the cloud and only keep recent files on my Stream. I manage to keep about 11GB free space.  

[Elkong]

But a USB drive or microSD card is not a solution, we have nothing that can be moved. C:\Windows is taking all the storage available, so I'm not sure how that can be an option, is not.

The user files are taking no space at all.

The moment C:\Windows uses more storage than we have total the laptop will stop working altogether, no matter how much external storage you have. How long is that going to take?

Will the laptop become a paperweight at that point? Maybe less than a year after purchase.

I just don't see how this is a viable product. I was assuming Windows 8.1 was providing me with a way to work with 32GB storage, but it doesn't seem to be the case. Between the 10GB recovery partition and the 18GB in C:\Windows we're down to nothing.

Any other way to see this?

[Elkong]

Quick question on that WIMboot, if Windows is using the Recovery Partition, how can it be that C:\Windows is taking up 18GB out of the 21GB C: drive?

From the beggining the C: drive had only 21GB, which right now if almost entirely taken by Windows itself. Pretty soon the whole 32 will be used up by Windows and Recovery Partition, and right after that there won't even be room for Windows.

I'm not getting it.

[kyle_b]

Yes, this is a common problem with these 32-GB drives.  When the laptop comes from the factory, the C: drive is only utilizing 4 GB due to the recovery partition also containing some necessary files for Windows.  It is probably the Windows updates that have consumed your C: drive over time. 

You might restore the laptop from the recovery partition to reclaim the C: drive space and then watch the updates as they fill the drive.  There are some other posts here about that, one audio driver update was supposedly using 10 GB. 

If Windows 10 is available as a fresh install ISO file, the drive could be wiped clean including the recovery partition and that should provide more space also.

[Elkong]

My only problem is that this setup with 32GB and WIMboot is very well designed for the beginning, a machine with no changes, but the moment Windows Updates come to play it all goes to crap.

Like a WAN engineer said a long time ago, this network would run superfast with no users in it.

These laptops would run great just sitting on the shelf. Well guess what, we actually needed to put a couple of programs in them.

Any expectation that Win 10 will take less space and will it also use WIMboot?

[kyle_b]

I have done fresh installations of the Windows 10 preview on my Stream 11 by wiping the hard drive clean (including the recovery partition) and there was quite a bit of disk space available after the installation.  There was no WIMboot.  I am not sure how the final release of Windows 10 will work but if an ISO file is available, it could be installed like this I would think.

[Elkong]

I was waiting for the official release of Windows 10, I have downloaded the ISO and I'll be attempting to do a fresh install.

I read you need a serial number to do a clean installation, if that's right, what do I use?

Obviously these laptops with Windows 8/8.1 don't have a sticker with the license.

Thanks

[Ge0ph]

If you run diskcleanup you can have it get rid of the Windows update files and a bunch of other un-needed stuff. This should get you back some usable space. 

[kyle_b]

Hi, regarding the fresh installation of Windows 10, I performed it on my Stream 7 tablet but it will not activate.  I first captured my Windows 8.1 License Key using third party software but Windows 10 did not accept it and it does not automatically detect it from the system board. 

According to this, you have to first update Windows 8.1 in-place, give it time to activate on Window 10, and then you can wipe the disk clean and do a fresh install and it should then recognize the license.  I'm going to restore my tablet back to 8.1 from my recovery media and try this when I get a chance.