Windows 10 Home 64-bit PC with nearly full 32 GB disk - how to free up 1.2 GB or more free space

You can patch it this once, but the problem is going to recur again and again and again, until eventually it can't be patched and then you have to fix it the Right Way.

So you might as well take the bull by the horns now, avoid fiddling around with files that you really don't want to delete (e.g., journaled Update files) and put a new drive into it.  Go to your local computer recycler and get a used working 160 GB, 200GB or 320GB used laptop drive.  This should cost less than $25.  Problem solved, both immediately and for the future.

(32GB isn't big enough for Windows 10 anyway and I can't imagine how the manufacturer managed to cram it all on and make it fit.)

Or splurge and buy an SSD.  120 GB SSDs are now down around $45 online.  It'll provide a very notable performance kick if the 32GB is a hard drive.

Hi Dr. Klahn,

My laptop is a HP Stream.

Sadly the Installed Storage Type is eMMC.

I believe it is soldered on to the motherboard.

See for example:
https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Operating-System-and-Recovery/2018-Win10-Update-too-big-for-32gb-eMMc-drive-on-Stream-360/td-p/6638282

Sorry Joe,

I only saw your post after submitting my last post.

No worries, Leigh, happens to me often. :)

Disabling hibernation should clear 0.8 Gb.  Just type powercfg.exe /hibernate off from a command prompt. This will of course mean that you will not be able to hibernate, but it can be enabled again later.

After that, try running the Disk Cleanup. (Right click the C:, properties, general, disk cleanup). This would almost certainly clear another 0.4 Gb. If you are unsure f the implication of anything that Disk Cleanup suggests, then post again here.

Hi Leigh,
While Mal's suggestions are definitely good ones, I think that trying to "delete/disable" your way to success is going to be a losing battle in the long run. My experience with the 32GB HP Stream 11 is that the only way to make it usable is to move data and programs off the C drive onto the SDXC card (mapped, of course, to a drive letter). Being on the hairy edge of running out of C drive space is not where you want to be with W10 (or even prior versions, for that matter...in fact, my Stream 11 is running W8.1). Just one person's opinion. Regards, Joe

I agree with Joe and Dr. Klahn that the only long term solution is to increase the storage.

Turns out I had a spare SanDisk 128GB Micro SDXC 100MB/s Ultra SD.

My intention is a make that my boot drive.

I've had success imaging the C:drive my Surface Pro onto a bootable SSD in a USB 3.0 enclosure.
I will do something similar with the SD drive.

Thanks Joe, Dr. Klahn and Mal for your help.

> Turns out I had a spare SanDisk 128GB Micro SDXC 100MB/s Ultra SD.

Perfect!

> My intention is a make that my boot drive.

Please post back here to let us know if that works or not. I know that an SSD in a USB enclosure is usually bootable, but I don't know about an SD card (I didn't try it with my Stream 11). Regards, Joe