OS Drive Died - How to do fresh install

wesimmo · 4 Jun 2017 at 11:55

I was running Windows 10 on my desktop and last night the drive failed.

No matter what, the repair tool won't work so I bought a new drive this morning with the intention of doing a fresh install and then seeing what I could rescue off the old drive.

How the hell do I do that as the Microsoft tool to create a USB bootable drive needs 17gb of drive space and my laptop is a cheap thing I only use to tune my car so hasn't got enough drive space. I've tried using an external drive but there's no option to use it.

TIA

SimonC · 4 Jun 2017 at 12:53

You should be able to download the ISO, unless they removed that option, save it the external drive, then use the windows creation tool or rufus to create a bootle flash drive.

mattyfez · 4 Jun 2017 at 18:21

Unscrupulous hardware vendors are responsible for this, I've had the same problem with my other half's net book that came with a 40gb drive.

**No talk about things that are not allow to be talked about - Stelly**

Phemo · 5 Jun 2017 at 09:50

I figure you might have this sorted by now, but if not...

Interestingly, if you go to download Windows 10 from the Microsoft site on a Windows PC, it gives you the media creation tool whereas if you go to the same page from an alternative OS system it actually lets you generate full direct ISO links without having to faff around with the media creation tool.

So with that in mind, here's a link to the full 64-bit creator's update ISO, straight from Microsoft. Links are only valid for 24 hours from now though:

https://software-download.microsoft...1496738948&h=2f52862e0079b67925f76164a5b5681f

Once you've got that downloaded you can either burn it to a disc as you normally would or you can just use Rufus to make a bootable USB stick. Should make things easier as the only disk space you need is the 4GB or so for storing the ISO.

SimonC · 5 Jun 2017 at 10:13

Phemo said:
Once you've got that downloaded you can either burn it to a disc as you normally would or you can just use Rufus to make a bootable USB stick. Should make things easier as the only disk space you need is the 4GB or so for storing the ISO.

I couldn't get a 4 gb flash to work recently when I done an install, I think it's the creators update that's made it bigger. 8gb worked just fine.

Phemo · 5 Jun 2017 at 12:14

Yeah that makes sense. The ISO is 4.03GB and you'll only ever get around 3.7GB of space on a 4GB USB stick so it has to be at least an 8gB one.