An exploratory question

[davidhk129]

I have a small 8.9 inch tablet, 32 GB internal memory, 32-bit Dual OSes with Windows 10 Home and Android KitKat.
Its C: drive has only 6.13 GB free.

I already have a Win 10 Home in a 17" laptop.
2 Win 10 Home is redundant.
I am wondering if I would switch the small one to receive Insider Preview but with only 6.13 GB space left, I am not sure it will work OK. I know Insider Preview needs less than 3 GB for a 32-bit version.
I do have a 64 GB sd card inserted, but that won't do any good I am afraid.
Furthermore, there is no install.esd in the system.
I do have copy of iso for Windows 10 Home 32-bit. But not sure that can be applied to this tablet if I want to reinstall Win 10 Home.

Any opinions ?

 

[davehc]

I doubt it, but no harm in trying.
But I believe the build download caches in the first instance, and then installs from the cached download, so you would need at least twice the build size to be successful.

 

[Trouble]

As I recall from you earlier comments about that tablet, it is pretty unique in that it hosts both Android and Windows OSs.
I would first make sure that I had a complete system image and a way of booting, to recover from the image in the event that it was foobar'd in the process.
Can you boot that thing from an external resource like a USB DVD drive or USB thumb drive that hosts something like Acronis True Image rescue media and a system image?
Does the manufacturer provide some type of restore media that is bootable?

 

[davidhk129]

It does not have an regular USB port, but a micro USB.

I have an external dvd drive and a micros USB hub which I can use for connection.

System image backup is done to my 64 GB sd card which I have done once.
I am doing another one now the 2nd time.

This tablet claims to have an EFI system partition which I did not know until now.

 

[Trouble]

System image backup

A system image backup may not be the same as a disk image backup.
If you are performing a system image backup from within Windows then it may not contain all of the Android components and may not support a full and complete restore of the disk as it is.

The existence of an EFI partition is not surprising, most new computers come with UEFI BIOS and the disks are consequently formatted as GPT as well.
This only means that anything you boot from would have to be UEFI / GPT compliant, unless you have a means of setting the BIOS to support UEFI + Legacy.

 

[davidhk129]

This idea of mine is DOA.
Just found out I cannot backup system image to my sd card.
I was told I would need to insert a 1 GB or better dvd to do so.
Too much work.

 

[Trouble]

Could you not just put the ISO for 10565 onto your SD card
Mount the image from within Windows 10 and perform an in-place upgrade?
Wouldn't that get you to where you want to go.

 

[davidhk129]

Could you not just put the ISO for 10565 onto your SD card
Mount the image from within Windows 10 and perform an in-place upgrade?
Wouldn't that get you to where you want to go.

I wasn't even planning that.
My plan was to connect my external hard drive which stores the build 10565 ISO to the tablet via OTG hub > then mount the ISO.
If I find out for sure how to reinstall Win 10, then I'll carry out my plan.

 

[davidhk129]

Total failure.
Stop dead on track.................. not enough disk space.

 

[davidhk129]

Total failure.
Stop dead on track.................. not enough disk space.

Maybe not.

A while back I read about the Windows To Go in a USB thing.
So, I googled to find out if I could have Windows To Go in a micro sdcard.
One person in Windows Central forum said it could be done but did not say how.

I already have Insider Preview 10565 downloaded to a 64 GB sdcard .
So I ran it, and like last time, I was told " not enough space ".
But there are options to either use a different drive or an external hard drive.
Using the Micro USB hub, I connected my 1 TB WD Passport ext. hard drive to the tablet.
Strangely, the tablet did not see it.
Not sure what I did, but I managed to get the installer to use my sd card for install.
It has about 59 GB available.
So, installation has begun.
And it is now at the % stage as I write this.

Knock on wood !

P.S. I read that Windows running off an USB will be quite a bit slower. I assume it will be applicable to running off a sdcard as well. We'll see.

 

[davidhk129]

Optimism premature.

Walked away for a while, came back to find it restoring to previous version.

A bust is a bust is a bust.