Windows 8 refresh

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vadersoul

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Nov 25, 2011
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My windows 8 is stuck in a reboot cycle, i have done everything possible to sort it including resetting the dism settings, safe boot (which doesnt work) repair.. the only option now is to refresh

However when I go to refresh it tells me I don't have enough space.

My build that I did myself involved creating a small c: partition for windows (i cant remember the exact numbers but about 6GB or something similar, enough to run) and the rest of my apps, documents, files point to an A: that holds the rest on my 500GB drive

... but now the problem is that stuck using only a dos prompt I can't easily find what files I need to be deleting to get the refresh working and more-over there is no advice on how much space I need to free up either (the error message neglects to share this)

So my options currently are :
> Just do a fresh install, I would lose some customization and program file installs that I have under C: - I can of course copy this over by dos prompt to my A: and peruse through later to figure out what I need to reinstall
> Refresh --which needs me to clear some space out before apparently.

I would welcome any advice on how much space I need to clear out, if there are any big juicy files that i can just wipe since the refresh will rebuild them anyway.

Some research I have found suggests that if i do a simple DIR command with the operator /O:S and /S to sort by size and look through sub-dir's... aiming to find a big chunky 500MB file that is sitting there doing nothing that i can bin off

Any advice? (P.S. I really dont want to mess around with a reinstall)
 
Solution
I
Why not just enlarge the partition and then it should work. 3rd party boot disks, like Puppy Linux (http://puppylinux.org/main/Overview%20and%20Getting%20Started.htm) should allow you to do this?
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IrvSp

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6GB's? Way too small I think? A lot of 'temp' and system files can be put on C: that you can't change? 60GB's, maybe, but not 6GB's.

Also A: is for DISKETTE DRIVES (so is B:), at least in older Windows versions. It seems that Disk Manager allows A as a choice, but I'm not sure it is valid?

If you set the 500GB as A: during the install and then hit the re-boot, that could be the problem?

You might be able to boot the install DVD and go to a command prompt there and run Disk Manager (or get some 3rd party boot disk and use its version) but if A: is embedded in the C: you could be out of luck and a clean new install is in order?

The problem with the refresh is probably SPACE on C:. You might be able to enlarge the C: partition to something reasonable and then the refresh would work. You can DELETE and TEMP files in the various TEMP folders I guess, space gained might not be enough though.

If you run CHKDSK on the C: you can see the disk size though as well as free space.
 
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vadersoul

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I know it is small, the amount of times i have had to refresh my browser cache because it hit the limit is silly.. and i rarely bump into capacity issues with my storage drive so i definetely didn't think it through lol --- i wonder if it might be easier just to get this issue sorted and then repartition and reinstall on a more planned out arrangement.. 60GB is way too big though, thats just silly ;)


A works fine for me, yes i know it used to be for floppys as was B so its fine and valid nowadays



I can't see this, most bios nowadays recognize USB and non-floppy builds



A bit of subject here... this isnt really going to be an issue and not what i was concerned about



My concern is less on seeing what the space is, its finding any bloated files or directories and getting rid of them.

Ideally, if it says DIR_123 has 1GB of space being taken up or FILE_345 has 200MB of space being taken up, I can make a judgement call as to force deleting those or copying them out so I can get down to the number I need.

Only problem is, i dont know how much i need


The alternative option is to install fresh to my A: and either leave my small C: for random storage or repartition later down the line to bring it into the main drive or repartion C: to be a bit bigger and install windows back to there

Damn me, if i had only set system restore on my install i wouldnt have had to deal with this stupid windows update rubbish
 
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IrvSp

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Why not just enlarge the partition and then it should work. 3rd party boot disks, like Puppy Linux (http://puppylinux.org/main/Overview%20and%20Getting%20Started.htm) should allow you to do this?
 
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Solution
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vadersoul

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I was wrong about the system disk size, was 40GB in the end.
So I spent about 2 hours combing through command prompt values to strip out data and in the end, it still wasn't enough.

Only solution was a fresh install - feels nice and clean now and aside from some bookmarks, i really didn't loose anything important
 
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