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So I was told that I can use the storage on an external hard drive to update Windows 10, which would make sense. I even saw on other Windows Community Forums that it is possible, however there aren't any tutorials or anything online that I could find. I've tried but the update page tells me I need more space, I really hope I didn't waste money on an external hard drive, it would have taken 3 weeks for an internal. So if it is possible to use the space on the hard drive to update Windows please guide me through.
Thank you.
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Hi Adam,
There will be an option to use an external drive to temporarily extend the storage space of your computer while the update is being installed if your device doesn't have enough space for the update. We recommend that you check this article as a guide on how to use an external storage device to install updates for your Windows 10.
Let us know whenever you need further assistance.
I'm glad to hear that you got through with the update.
On a positive note, should you went through with the Windows 10 ISO method, you won't be having a problem with the battery anymore since you can execute the installation from the MicroSD slot and use the MicroUSB slot for power.
If you have other concerns, don't hesitate to post back.
Thanks for checking back. In the meantime I was able to complete the update overnight using the USB socket for the external drive, running solely on battery. Part of the problem had been that the 32 GB internal drive was within 2 GB of full even though I'd removed all of my own files. This seemed to be causing the update to run extremely slowly. I was able to get an additional 2 GB of free space by going through the Windows folder and my AppData/Local folder and identifying everything that looked like it could be safely removed. I then started the update at bedtime with the battery at 100% and it still had about 30% the next morning with the update completed and working just fine.
Had there not been enough battery for the update, your suggestion of using the ISO would work provided it completed within the time allowed by the battery, or the device could boot off the microSD (haven't tried that yet) so that the computer could be powered by the USB socket. Too bad it doesn't have wireless charging.
This would have been far easier if update had recognized the 64 GB microSD card in the microSD socket as either an internal or an external drive, but instead it ignored it. Since all other software seems to be happy to treat it as a 64 GB D: drive, this seems like a bug in Windows Update!
I apologize for the delay.
Are you still experiencing the problem? If updating Windows from an external storage device doesn't work well, another option that we can suggest is doing an in-place upgrade. In this method, you will be installing the latest Windows update using the media creation tool from this link.
Once a copy of Windows 10 ISO is downloaded to an external device, you can run it to install the updates.
Let us know if you have other concerns.
Hi Vaughan,
Try reformatting the drive first. For updating Windows 10 from an external drive, please refer to this article.
Regards.
Thanks. I already tried both of those. Update would only recognize the E: drive in the mcroUSB socket as external storage, not the D: drive in the microSD socket, even though both drives were usable for everything else. But Update would also not treat the D: drive as part of internal storage either. It's a mystery to me why Update can't see the D: drive.
Could it be that Windows is treating the E: drive as external storage but the D: drive as internal storage, and that the latter is confusing Update?
This is a problem because the only way to keep the tablet plugged in is via its one microUSB socket. The OTG power at that socket only goes one direction at a time: it only accepts power for charging the tablet when not being used for an external storage device. So to do an update I first charge the tablet to 100%, then replace the power cord with a microUSB storage device (currently using a 64GB PNY DUOPOWER), then get to worry whether the battery has enough during the update. Currently the update to 1803 is taking ages: it went from 1% to 2% over the past half hour, I don't see any way to tell the battery's state of charge, and I'm afraid something might go wrong if I unplug the E: drive during the update in order to supply power for a while. (It would be nice if there were a way to pause update in order to do so.)
