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Windows 10 Hard Drive is too Full to Boot Windows 10

Fixed: Hard Drive is too Full to Boot Windows 10

By Achilles Hill | Last Updated

"My HP computer won't boot up Windows 10 because of the full hard disk. Is there any effective way to make my Windows 10 computer start as normal?"

When you are stuck in the trouble - hard drive is too full to boot Windows 10, the first action you can take is releasing the disk space with the help of another Windows computer. If the fix above makes no big change for the full hard disk, then you might need to replace the hard drive with a larger one. Now, let's read on to learn more about how to use the 2 fixes here to get rid of the trouble - hard drive is too full to boot Windows 10.

  1. Fix 1: Release Disk Space by Using Another Windows PC
  2. Fix 2: Replace the Full Hard Disk with a Larger One

hard drive is too full to boot windows 10

Fix 1: Release Disk Space by Using Another Windows PC

This is the basic fix and it works very effectively on the situations that there are many GB files stored in the full hard disk or the hard disk is out of space after you move many big files to it.

To apply this fix:

Disconnect the full hard disk from the original Windows 10 machine and install it into another workable Windows computer. Then access each partition of the connected hard disk to delete the useless files and move the needed files to other places like external hard drive as much as possible. Next, remove the hard drive which is full before from the workable computer and reinstall it into the original PC to check whether the Windows 10 OS can be powered on again.

delete big files

Fix 2: Replace the Full Hard Disk with a Larger One

Fix 1 doesn't help a lot in freeing up the disk space? Then, it might be time to upgrade the full hard disk with a large-capacity drive. Don't worry, the disk replacement doesn't mean that you will lose the familiar running environment. You can clone the entire full hard disk to the larger drive, which prevents the system reinstallation and data loss from you. So, how to replace the full hard disk while keeping the OS and data? Here is the short tutorial for you.

What you need:

  1. A USB disk
  2. A large enough hard drive
  3. An accessible Windows computer
  4. The unbootable Windows 10 computer
  5. iSunshare CloneGo, a powerful Windows cloning utility that enables you to completely copy the entire hard disk or single partition with or without booting into Windows OS.

Part One: Make a PE Disk with Partition Clone Function

Step 1: Insert the USB disk into the accessible Windows computer.

Step 2: Install iSunshare CloneGo on the same PC step by step and only check the option "Launch iSunshare CloneGo" to directly run the utility in the last step.

download isunshare clonego
run isunshare clonego

Step 3: In the using interface, click Make Boot Disk button in the upper menu and click Select WIM file to make PE option.

make pe with wim file

Step 4: Hit Download button to download the winpe archive file, extract the file and get the winpe.wim file. After that, add the wim file to the Select file bar and hit OK button to continue.

choose wim file

Step 5: Choose the inserted USB disk and click Make button to burn a PE disk with iSunshare CloneGo installed in.

burn pe disk

Part Two: Divide the Large Hard Drive into Bigger Volumes

Step 1: Install the large hard drive into the accessible Windows computer and initialize it in Disk Management if it has not been initialized before.

Step 2: Make sure that the number of the drive's volume is the same as or more than that of the full hard disk and also each volume is bigger than that of the original full disk.

initialize large disk

Part Three: Clone the Full Hard Disk to the Large Hard Drive

Step 1: Connect both the PE USB disk and large hard drive to the unbootable Windows computer and boot the computer from the USB disk.

Step 2: Select Copy option on the utility screen. Then, select the partition of full hard disk from the drop-down menu of Select a Source Partition option. Similarly, choose a partition of the large drive in Select a Target Partition bar. When the source partition is the system volume, you need to check the option Set the target partition as the boot disk to make the system bootable.

select source and target partition

Step 3: Click Start button. Instantly, you will receive a tips box written with "The disk will be formatted. Start copying?". You can confirm the partition clone operation by clicking Yes option. After that, the utility will begin copying the chosen volume.

start copying source partition

Step 4: When you see the following pop-out, you can continue cloning the remaining partitions of the full hard disk to the large hard drive.

successful partition copy

Now, just start the unbootable computer from the large hard drive and then you can operate the original Windows 10 OS normally and successfully.

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