Auto upgrade will not work (insufficient free memory)

Davee3 · 25 Jan 2020

Currently on version 1803 I cannot free up enough memory - its a small fanless computer 32Gb ram . I tried windows media creation tool and it finished with reverting to old system version or words to that effect. If I download a pure ISO file onto a USB and set the boot order to go to it , will this allow the installation to go ahead?
Alternatively can I move the windows file to another drive & run upgrade tool to "repopulate" the C: drive

dalchina · 25 Jan 2020

Some of the ideas here may help:
Free Up Drive Space in Windows 10

but you will struggle with such a tiny amount of space.

At present I'd not bother to upgrade to 1909 until MS fixes file explorer search. 1903 is fine- but with that device I'd just wait- or simply not bother trying if it's working well now.

You can find other threads where people have dealt with devices with limited EMMC storage.

bobkn · 25 Jan 2020

You have some options.

1) Format a USB drive as NTFS. Move the .iso to it. (The drive has to be NTFS, because the .iso is larger than 2GB.) Mount the .iso using Windows Explorer, and run the update from that.

2) Format the USB drive as FAT32, and copy the contents of the .iso onto it. Delete the .iso from the small computer, and run the update from the USB drive.

I have never done it, but if you still have insufficient space on that 32 GB drive to run an update, it is supposed to be possible to use the external USB drive as additional storage. A 16GB drive may be sufficient, but 32GB could be better. https://www.dell.com/support/article...evices?lang=en

I believe that could be the same drive that carries the .iso or its contents. I'd use FAT32 and the expanded .iso.

badrobot · 25 Jan 2020

I've done this before with my ASUS T100.
If you have external card (micro-SD) or USB flashdrive, just plug it in and it will save the files there temporarily during the upgrade.

Davee3 · 25 Jan 2020

badrobot said:

I've done this before with my ASUS T100.
If you have external card (micro-SD) or USB flashdrive, just plug it in and it will save the files there temporarily during the upgrade.

Well I tried with the internal extra drive Everything looked good but then after installing the new set up I got again the reverting to old files message after restarting

badrobot · 25 Jan 2020

Davee3 said:

Well I tried with the internal extra drive Everything looked good but then after installing the new set up I got again the reverting to old files message after restarting

I guess it has nothing to do with drive capacity anymore. It could be hardware compatibility issue now.
Incidentally, I just reinstalled 1803 on my ASUS T100 last night and everything went well. I don't think this device can handle 1903. :)

Auto upgrade will not work (insufficient free memory)-image.png

EDIT:

Oh well, I guess there's no harm trying... :)

Berton · 25 Jan 2020

bobkn said:

You have some options.

1) Format a USB drive as NTFS. Move the .iso to it. (The drive has to be NTFS, because the .iso is larger than 2GB.) Mount the .iso using Windows Explorer, and run the update from that.

There's 2 limits in Windows with formatting as FAT32, one is the drive or partition can't be created over 32GB and the single-file size in FAT32 is 4GB, + or - 1Byte, although Windows can work with larger capacities formatted as FAT32.

Other ways to get over drives or partitions over FAT32 are available, I've gotten up to 500GB. I have USB Thumb drives up to 64GB and they came factory-formatted as FAT32, don't yet know about 128GB and larger.

bobkn · 25 Jan 2020

Davee3 said:

Well I tried with the internal extra drive Everything looked good but then after installing the new set up I got again the reverting to old files message after restarting

Did you ever get this screen?