New PC not enough space for Windows 10?

Mark Phelps said:

Hey folks, the drive really is 20GB, not 32GB -- and there are lots of posts on the HP Support forums of folks who have tried such an upgrade and failed.

This'll mostly be a distinction without a difference, but...

If it comes with a decimal 32GB of HD space, Windows will report it as 29.8GB. (The usual 1e9/2^30 gigabyte definition difference.) I don't know how much of that would be needed for the Windows restore partition. I believe that the disk really is a "32GB" one.

What I'd probably try if I owned such a machine would be:

Image the drive. (I own Acronis True Image. Macrium Reflect Free might be a good alternative.)

Prepare the files for a clean install without a prior activation (post #2).

Clean install 10, wiping all the partitions on the drive.

(But that's just me.)

bobkn said:

What I'd probably try if I owned such a machine would be:

Image the drive. (I own Acronis True Image. Macrium Reflect Free might be a good alternative.)

Prepare the files for a clean install without a prior activation (post #2).

Clean install 10, wiping all the partitions on the drive.

(But that's just me.)

Exactly what I would do - using Macrium Reflect Free.

When Windows Setup has no space, it suggests to connect another drive with at least 9GB free to continue. Just connect a flash drive with enough space and proceed with the upgrade. No need to touch any partitions.

spapakons said:

When Windows Setup has no space, it suggests to connect another drive with at least 9GB free to continue. Just connect a flash drive with enough space and proceed with the upgrade. No need to touch any partitions.

This is the one I want to try, as I haven't understood most of the other options :)

But someone did earlier say that the HP forums are full of people who tried this and failed?

And regarding a clean install, I'm not sure I have a key. I didn't have a disk or anything.

You don't need a key, just click Skip during setup. To be able to activate Windows 10, you must either upgrade your previous version to 10, or create an activation token as described in this post and use it to activate a clean-install. If the USB used has not enough space or some access error interrupt the process, it will fail. To make sure, format the USB drive as NTFS so it can save large files over 4GB, if there is anyone. Also make sure it has at least 10-12GB free. Oh yes, disable your antivirus during the upgrade so it won't try to block anything.