This post is more than 5 years old
17 Posts
0
54211
Limitations and possibilities of a 32GB eMMC drive
I am having forty kinds of fits with this "computer" and need help. The machine is a Dell Inspiron 3452 with a 32GB drive mounted on the motherboard. It's one of those that cannot be upgraded. The 2GB SODIMM RAM can be removed and upgraded to 4GB, but that's it. Windows 10 takes up 1/2 of the hard drive and the first automatic update (thanks to MS) took up the other half before it even finished, filled the drive to capacity, and rendered it unusable. The owner turned the machine on, connected to the internet, and now cannot even load a single program.
Disk Management shows it having three recovery drives and one C: Drive, filled to capacity with Windows 10 (2015 version). The recovery drives show as having;
750MB (Status: Healthy; Recovery Partition)
350MB (Status: Healthy; Active, Recovery Partition)
15.63GB (Status: Healthy; Recovery Partition)
...and each with 100% free space.
I'd like to use the tools in Disk Management to reallocate drive space on that largest "recovery" partition, but they don't exist on this machine. Tried to install Easeus Partition Master and there's not enough room for a 36MB file. Either it just doesn't give me the option to run it from a USB drive or I don't know how.
I'm so frustrated, I don't even know the right questions to ask. I guess the one to get started is how do I get such a limited machine to run a program directly off a USB drive?
GallantFox
17 Posts
0
November 20th, 2017 10:00
Hi, ieee488 ~
1. This pc came with Windows 10 so in the clean reinstall, the digital license was detected automatically. If it isn't, you'll need to have a current product key.
2. Personally, I would never buy one of these as a gift. Unless you really disliked the person you were giving it to.
The user would need to understand in advance that they'll have extremely limited hard drive space and will be using "the cloud," flash drives, and SD cards for their storage. When I was given this pc to "make it work," it had no storage space left, whatsoever, so if they're careful right from the start, maybe they can avoid the nightmare I had to figure out.
ieee488
1 Rookie
1 Rookie
•
11.1K Posts
0
November 20th, 2017 11:00
Based on your write up, I think I will pass on giving this as a gift. I may be tempted to buy one myself, but I already have a Chromebook. This type of laptop seems to be Microsoft's attempt to counter Chromebooks.
AlexisGonzalez
2 Posts
0
July 31st, 2018 16:00
Great information but it did not work for me because my laptop does not allow me to reach the cmd . Any ideas on how to do that will help. I also downloaded a Windows 10 lite 32bit version to try to install it but since it comes without the drivers, it does not install, plus my computer doesn't allow me to install.
HELP!!!
mjskipper
1 Message
0
November 2nd, 2018 03:00
dlf-drdirt
2 Posts
0
December 25th, 2018 06:00
An invaluable article. I don't know much about computers on this level, but stumbled into this article, and it let me recover my Inspiron 11-3000 with the soldered in 32GB Sandisk DF-4092. I had tried the factory OS reinstall using "Dell OS Recovery", but it just ran for a half hour and gave a useless error message. I'd also tried installing from a MS copy of Windows 10, 8.1, & 7., but it said disk control not set correctly. Since I've never successfully tinkered in the Bio setup, other than changing boot order, that was not where I could go.
When I called Dell, they told me the warranty only covered hardware, but they sent the job number and transferred me to Software (on the other side of the world). The Guru there told me that my machine was an "experiment", and Dell didn't realize that Windows 10 would grow and updating would fill the disk. He kindly offered to sell me a new machine with a magnificant $50 discount, for only $299. He didn't have a solution, and didn't want to talk about a possible retrofit of a larger SSD that would fit and work. Since it won't boot, and is too small for a boat anchor, I decided to let it all hang out, and try the above dos commands. The difficulty then was getting a dos command. I'd already exhausted my abilities with Hiren's boot disk 15.2, but downloaded a copy of 16.2, and after I gave up waiting for it to boot, went off to other activities, only to come back to a windows screen with a dos prompt icon. The above solution worked like a charm. Then I tried installing Windows 8.1, and it found the disk, with 28 gb free, but no partition. I then ran my Dell factory recovery, choosing to wipe the disk, which said it would establish the partitions. It did, I'm back to a fresh machine. I turned off wireless till I could disable Windows10 update, reinstalled Chrome, Winamp, and VLC. Now I'll get my .epub reader, a memory card for music storage, and have a good entertainment machine (with headset). Thanks again for the DOS commands.
dlf-drdirt
2 Posts
0
December 25th, 2018 07:00
Probably a little late, but look at my reply to Gallant Fox post. (Unless you bought a smaller boar). I download the Hiren's from their web page, but it still was numbered 15.2 on the file, so I labored thru one of the other downloads, being careful not to take the other forks. It took forever for 16.2 to boot, and if I'd not have other things to do, I would probably have given up. You can burn a USB with the Dell OS Recovery Software, and reinstall after converting to the GPT. I suspect the Bios won't work with any other version or copy of Windows, but didn't pursue that avenue.
MsAva
1 Message
0
October 27th, 2019 20:00
Mine was a brick, pretty much out of the box. Thanks for posting this! All I wanted was a light-weight machine for blogging and writing, which I finally have!
BTW - If you're stuck on the how to get the cmd, it's Shift + F10 before the language options screen.
isay-rj
1 Message
0
October 23rd, 2020 08:00
@GallantFox
"The 2GB SODIMM RAM can be removed and upgraded to 4GB...,"
How to do this upgrade? What model and where to buy the memory?