Skip to main content
Start a Conversation

Unsolved

This post is more than 5 years old

U

user_e69273

2 Posts

4538

July 4th, 2018 12:00

Dell OS Recovery Tool Error: Insufficient space...blah blah

Banging my head against the wall here for 3 days now...

Dell OS Recovery Tool "The hard drive has insufficient free space. The selected Windows recovery image requires at least {0}GB of disk space."

Moving from downgraded Win7 to Win10, both available options on my Dell account through the OS Recovery Tool.

I continue to receive this message despite having 300+GB on C drive, 64Gb on USB thumbdrive, 500GB USB ext drive.

I've reformatted between exFAT and NTFS, thumbdrive/ USB ext drive plugged in and out, uninstall /reinstall Dell OS Recovery Tool, run CC cleaner to clean registry, updated all drivers/ BIOS, updated Win, tried in safe boot, ...

I was able ONCE get a copy of Win 10 onto an ext drive and install to laptop but the installation hung at 97%

Since then, I havent been able to get win 10 on ANY drive (I tried reinstalling the OS thinking the 97% hanging issue was in the Dell OS Recovery). BIOS has been put back to Dell default (I suppose I could also try BIOS default as an option while waiting to hear peoples suggestions)

I have followed the Dell OS Rec Tool instructions from the Dell support page...to no avail.

Any suggestions are helpful at this point!!

Mary G

4 Operator

 • 

20.1K Posts

July 4th, 2018 13:00

It probably was caused by the last windows 10 update. Not sure after all you've done that this fix will work but it's here

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-files/new-partitions-may-appear-in-file-explorer-after/115d2860-542e-410f-983c-2aeb8bbd7d13 

What you need to do now is use the Create Media tool, burn installation media thumb drive or dvd and boot to it and do a clean install that includes deleting the big partition where you want windows installed and installing it there on the unallocated partition. Win 10 will not install from an external hard drive. 

user_e69273

2 Posts

July 5th, 2018 09:00

Thanks for your response Mary.

Problem I have using the the Media Creation Tool is I need a licensed OS. I've installed Win10 before on an upgrade path using the Media Creation Tool but I was hoping to avoid that by using my Dell licensed copy (I have both Win 7 and Win 10 available for this laptop). Is there a way to pull the MS auth key from within my computer? Seems like Dell is no longer attaching the MS sticker to the bottom of laptops

BigTim777

1 Message

September 7th, 2019 15:00

This post is over a year ago and I am having this exact same problem here. I have a Dell inspiron 11 3162 and I am attempting to restore this to factory configuration. The dell os recovery tool is stating I need a 16gb drive, I tried two seperate 16gb usb drives. It states it needs 6.38 gb free for the recovery software. I have blank 16gb drive here that I have completely formatted. So what is the problem here and why can't I find any info on this? I need to get this system restored. Is there an updated version of the recovery tool? If not why hasn't there been seeing others had this problem over a year ago? I been attemping this for 2 days now and searched up and down here for a solution or answer. Can someone from Dell please respond here?

speedstep

9 Legend

 • 

47K Posts

September 10th, 2019 06:00

View More

View All

No Events found!

Top