Repair Install Windows 10 with an In-place Upgrade  

Hello @tzr916,

tzr916 said:

His C drive has 278 GB used and 658 GB free space. So the "low disk space" error is kinda a mystery.

Yes, strange. Have you run Disk Cleanup - Advanced [ Extended ] Mode? . . .

> OPTION TWO - To Open and Use Extended Disk Cleanup

I hope this helps.

Pavl said:

Wanted to thank Brink for an excellent tutorial.
Just gone from 1909 to 20H2 without incident (apart from initial iso download being corrupted).
Only noticable differences were the thing said "Hi" (urghhh) instead of "Hello" and it went directly to my own login screen and accepted fingerprint first go.
Date and time were correct at first sight.
20H2 - 19042.631
Now adding Linux to a second external drive ....

Great news. I'm glad it could help.

tobwen said:

In the first post it is said, that users have to "mount the ISO".
A DVD drive is depicted which means that the ISO must be put on a physical DVD.

There was NO DVD Drives needed for that. But I would prefer if you have an Windows 10 Install USB or DVD, you can use that.

tobwen said:

What if I put the ISO file somewhere on my hard disk and mount the ISO by a virtual drive tool?

The ISO Mount has integrated into Windows. No external software required.

tobwen said:

Possibly the upgrade process requires to reboot and the virtual drive mount state is lost after reboot.
So the upgrade process cannot be continued.

Windows ISO is not needed to mounted after the install.

@jepharcher

You might try doing the In-Place Upgrade with a "newer" ISO image...something newer than 1909.
Like 2004, 20H2 or 21H1.

The other day I was helping a friend over the phone with a similar problem. He had newer hardware and was using a very old ISO image. Something from early 2016.

Long story short, we tried In-Place Upgrade with the 21H1 ISO image and it worked fine.

It may also have something to do with MS stopping support, this month for Windows 10 1909 version.








Here is the short version of the In-place upgrade tutorial...

DISABLE non-Microsoft:
a) antivirus software
b) firewall software
c) drive encryption software

Make a full OS backup with a program like Macrium Reflect (free)
Macrium Software | Macrium Reflect Free

Go here and get the Media Creation Tool and save it to your desktop.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/soft...load/windows10

RUN the Media Creation Tool and use it to: Create an ISO image... save IT to your desktop.
This will be the latest version of the ISO image.




Right click the ISO image and choose: MOUNT
Open File Explorer and you will see a new drive letter. It will look like a DVD optical drive.
Double click the new drive letter to open it.
Find setup.exe and double click it to start the in-place upgrade.

Choose the Keep personal files and apps option.

After it's all done... to UNmount the ISO image, right click the new drive letter and choose: EJECT.


The ONLY thing you will lose is some of your personalizations. Your programs and data will be intact.

Hello @jepharcher, and Welcome to TenForums.

jepharcher said:

I have Windows 10 (version 1809, OS build 17763.292) installed on my HP Laptop. I never paid much attention to windows updates as these are mostly automated and background processes. But recently I got notification that my current windows version 1809 is no more supported by Microsoft anymore and I need to update my Windows to the latest build.

NOT necessarily, see here => How to Specify Target Feature Update Version in Windows 10

jepharcher said:

So I tried updating through Windows Update, but it keeps failing with error message 0x80070002. I tried Windows Update Troubleshooter, but didn't work.

Did you create a System Image BEFORE you started the Upgrade?

jepharcher said:

Then I tried to upgrade to the latest version through Media Creation Tool, but update process got stuck at 0% for more than 3 hours. I had to do forced reboot and luckily windows was able to undo the changes and no data was lost. The error encountered was 'Couldn't find the recovery environment'.

See above.

jepharcher said:

Then I took help from official Windows tech support, and when some basic troubleshooting didn't work, I was told that some of my system files may be corrupt and the only solution is to do clean installation of Windows, but I would lose my data and apps in the process, which I don't want to.

If you DID create a System Image BEFORE you started, then you could just Restore the System Image.

jepharcher said:

So after some internet search, I found this excellent post. So I downloaded ISO image of 1809 ver3 (March, 2019) and did all the steps as given. However, after two restarts, at around 40% update progress, I encountered blue screen and system rebooted. Then it undid the changes and luckily no data was lost. The error encountered was 'Error during MIGRATION_DATA operation'.

On older computers it can take a VEEEEEERY long time.

jepharcher said:

So now I am left wondering whether fresh installation is the only way ahead now. But I don't want to lose my apps and data. Is there any solution to fix this?

See above.

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I hope this helps.