Windows 10 install says not enough space to upgrade or system restore

ClaudiaThompson · 07 Oct 2019

I think that I have made a mess of my new Laptop Computer, unfortunately. I bought it a couple of years ago. My Desktop Computer recently got a blue screen after just trying to do a System Restore on it, and I was unable to fix it to get it working again. I tried everything. And so I got out my Laptop Computer that I had bought as a backup in case anything ever happened to my desktop computer, which of course, it did. I had to learn how to set it all up and managed to do that successfully. It came with Windows 10.

So anyway then my update thing kept saying that I needed to upgrade my Windows 10 to the 1903 version. And so I downloaded it, along with the Windows Upgrade Assistant. But no matter what I have tried, it just keeps telling me that I don't have enough space to do it. So I have tried all the ways it says to do, to free up space, but it is never enough and to me it seems that there was hardly anything on it in the first place. So I was desperate and started trying to delete things, even my desktop and put the folders onto an empty 32GB Flash Drive, thinking that I could then have enough space, but no, it never seems to be enough. Then I tried putting the folders back onto my computer but now when I open to restart my computer it says D:\Desktop\ is not available. Plus, I still am unable to upgrade my computer to Windows 10 the new version.

So now I have more problems than when I started. I have tried doing a System Recovery but it even says that I dont have enough space for that. To me it seems crazy that there seems to be not even enough space on this computer to turn around and it's supposed to be new. And then someone will tell me to do a full clean windows install and I haven't got a clue what they mean.

Can anybody please help me with this, please? At this point, I would like to get everything off this computer and set it to Factory Default Settings and start all over with it but it won't even allow me to do that since there isn't enough space on it, it says. I have never before experienced this problem of my computer saying that there wasn't enough space to do anything on it, and it's a new computer. What good is it if you can't even put anything on it? Geesh!

I don’t understand this, can you explain it to me like I’m 5? I would appreciate it so much,

Claudia

bobkn · 07 Oct 2019

Sorry to hear of your struggles.

Can you supply any information about your desktop PC?

I speculate that it's really an all-in-one, which has laptop internals in a desktop package. That could include a relatively tiny system drive, in the form of soldered-in flash memory.

dalchina · 07 Oct 2019

Hi, as it seems you probably don't have much on your laptop, and you have, or can back up anything you need, the easiest way forward would be to do a clean install.

How? There are hundreds of tutorials available to help with things like that. Here's one for a clean install:
Clean Install Windows 10

You need to create a bootable flash drive or similar, using the Microsoft Media Creation tool (Google). A clean install means you delete all existing Windows partitions. (You can keep the manufacturer's recovery partition should you wish, and any other partitions you may have created).

Read through the tutorial, and decide if that's for you.

That will mean you don't have any trialware or manufacturer's utilities on your PC and are using the latest build, rather than trying to do a factory reset and restore it to as bought- probably an older build.

ClaudiaThompson · 07 Oct 2019

bobkn,

Can you supply any information about your desktop PC?

My Desktop PC, which is the one with the blue screen that I cannot get to do anything else but that.... it is a Lenova All-in-one. That is about all that I can tell you, since I don't have it written down anywhere, any further information about it.

My Laptop, which is the one that I can't seem to do any sort of system restore or a windows 10 upgrade because of the lack of space is:

Acer Laptop
Aspire A114-31
Processor: Intel Celeron 1.10GHz
Installed Memory (RAM)
System Type: 64 bit Operating System

- - - Updated - - -

dalchina,

To be honest, I would probably be taking weeks to try to understand all of the terms in that tutorial, plus pestering all of you to try and find out. The second part I could probably easily do though, where I would have to enter in all my information.

dalchina · 07 Oct 2019

Thank you for your reply.

Clean install:
a. Create bootable flash drive with Microsoft media creation tool
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/soft...load/windows10
2nd big blue button - download that, run it with a big enough USB flash drive inserted.
That will create it for you.

b. Set up your BIOS to boot from the drive
c. Boot your PC from that drive
d. Follow the prompts carefully.

That's basically it.

Do you think you could do that? You could always get a more experienced friend to help you.

bobkn · 07 Oct 2019

ClaudiaThompson said:

(snip)

My Laptop, which is the one that I can't seem to do any sort of system restore or a windows 10 upgrade because of the lack of space is:

Acer Laptop
Aspire A114-31
Processor: Intel Celeron 1.10GHz
Installed Memory (RAM)
System Type: 64 bit Operating System

(snip)

I admit that I was confused. You have unrelated problems with two PCs, one of them a desktop, the other a laptop.

As regards the laptop, the spec I was looking for was hard disk size. You may actually have flash memory, rather than an old-fashioned spinning hard disk. Some versions of the Aspire A114-31 come with 32 GB of flash memory. That's pretty small.

I have never done it, but it's possible to use external memory (like a USB thumb drive) to extend the space so that you can run an update. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...feature-update It doesn't look difficult.

After performing the update, I recommend running the Disk Cleanup utility to free up space. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...0-disk-cleanup

I hope that you haven't been moving system folders (documents, etc.) willy-nilly. There are procedures for moving them to an external drive, but it's more complex than just moving them like non-system folders.

As regards the Lenovo desktop, You may be able to do a startup repair using a Windows installation USB drive. That's the same drive as described by Dalchina. A clean Win10 installation will wipe everything that's currently on the PC.

Best of luck. Failing all else, I hope that you have a friend who is knowledgeable enough to follow tutorials.

laststable · 07 Oct 2019

If you're still having this issue, i may have a solution for you. I've ran into this many times the past few months as we are in the process of upgrading over 100 workstations. You need at least 40 GB of free space to perform the upgrade. No, the upgrade doesn't consume that much but it is the requirement and you will get the "Not enough disk space" if you have any less. IF you meet this requirement, the second thing i would do is MAKE SURE you have no USB devices attached while attempting to perform the upgrade. Third, make sure you have no rouge USB device that may have not been ejected properly by the OS. This can be confirmed by using the device manager (search for device manager using the start menu) Next, make sure all drivers are up to date. Namely, BIOS, Chipset, NIC and Video. Do this by confirming your motherboard and heading over the the vendor support site and download each driver. Perform BIOS upgrade first, then proceed with Chipset, Video and NIC. Also, it's always a good idea to run some malware scans, ADW by malwarebytes and free and works well. Malwarebytes | AdwCleaner - Free Adware Cleaner & Removal Tool | Malwarebytes If you've satisfied all the aforementioned steps and continue to get the error, try the following, attempting the upgrade after each command.
1. search for cmd using the start menu and right click > Run as Administrator
2. type > sfc /scannow and press enter. This may take a while and may require a reboot if errors are detected. If it detects any issues, reboot and run it again. It may take a few attempts to become error free.
Again, attempt the upgrade, if it fails,
1. Run cmd as admin once again
2. run the following command > Dism.exe /online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup
3. Attempt upgrade once again, if it fails -
1. Run cmd as Admin
2. Run the following command > Dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
Note: Do not include the > in the command.
3. Attempt upgrade
Finally,
1. run cmd as Admin
2. run the following command > fsutil resource setautoreset true C:
3. attempt upgrade

If your issue persists, the easiest solution moving forward will be to do a clean install aka fresh install.

Please let me know the outcome.
Thanks!
LS

dalchina · 07 Oct 2019

We don't actually know anything about the laptop- its model, what sort of disk it has or how large, or how much free space there is on C:

One possibility is that the message actually relates to creating a new Recovery partition.

Bree · 07 Oct 2019

dalchina said:

We don't actually know anything about the laptop- its model, what sort of disk it has or how large, or how much free space there is on C:

It was in Post #4:

ClaudiaThompson said:

My Laptop, which is the one that I can't seem to do any sort of system restore or a windows 10 upgrade because of the lack of space is:
Acer Laptop
Aspire A114-31
Processor: Intel Celeron 1.10GHz
Installed Memory (RAM) System Type: 64 bit Operating System

We still don't know the available free space, but the Acer Aspire A114-31 was usually supplied with 32GB eMMC, occasionally 64GB, depending on the precise model.

dalchina · 07 Oct 2019

Thanks for looking that up.

With emmc limited space, one way to reduce space requirements when upgrading is to download the iso file to an external disk (so it doesn't take space on from emmc storage) then mount the iso, then view the new drive created in file explorer, then double click setup.exe to launch the upgrade.