Laptop has inexplicably run out of storage space

[gothamsreckoning]

I recently purchased an HP Stream laptop with 30G of hard drive storage space. This has quickly filled up and now there is no longer any space in order for Windows 10 updates to be implemented. What I don't understand however, is that hard drive space seems to have been eaten up by pretty much nothing but OS data! I have 0 pictures, 0 documents, 0 videos and 0 downloads on the hard drive. And only a handful of songs in my music folder. When I have run software to identify what is taking up all of the space on my hard drive, it states that Windows is occupying the most space at 23GB! This seems to be far too high? The remaining space is taken up by several small programs. I have inserted a 32GB mini SD card into my laptop to act as additional storage, however I can't move Windows or any other OS data onto this. It doesn't seem to recognise the SD card as an additional drive. When I have attempted to remove Windows incase that is the problem, I am informed that there is insufficient space to do so as it temporarily requires approx. 5GB to do so. As a result, I am stuck with a laptop which has only 232mb of storage left on the hard drive and no apparent way to increase this or remedy it. Grateful for any assistance that you can provide! Thank you

[Mark.]

my Windows folder (Win10) takes up 25.5GB's, so your 23GB is about right.
the the 3 Program Files folders add to 10.5GB.

so there's your 30GB blown without even thinking about anything personal let alone room to grow.

look into turning off or reducing your pagefile, hibernation file, Recycle Bin size, Restore Points allocation etc.
check you have no Windows.old folder, if so, remove it with the inbuilt cleanmgr program from an elevated command prompt.
get and run CCleaner from here; https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/builds [/font]and see how much space it reclaims.

but in short, 30GB was never going to cut it and you would have eventually been in this predicament at some time.

[Geek-9pm]

Wheredid yhou get a HP Stream laptop withonly 30 GB of driv e space?

Anyway, you can get a 250 GB hard drive at a very low price.
Bestoption is to get a replacement drive and 'clone' you currrent drive.

[patio]

Wheredid yhou get a HP Stream laptop withonly 30 GB of driv e space?

Thats what they ship with Geek...

And it may not accomodate a regular HDD.

[Geek-9pm]

Thats what they ship with Geek...

And it may not accomodate a regular HDD.

I didn't know. 
The HP Stream laptop is often sold with a 32 GB SSD. I think it can be can be upgradedto 64 GB SSD.  Hereis a YouTube link:
Upgrade HP Strteam Laptop
That might be of some help.

[Justin_Time]

Since it only has 1 USB 3 port I'd suggest getting a hub with more and a USB HDD for storage.

[gothamsreckoning]

Many thanks for your very helpful responses. I have a 1TB hard drive with 500GB of free space left. Could you advise how I could clone my current drive onto that?

[patio]

You cant clone to an exieting HDD that has data on it unless you partition it properly with an an active partition...
How savvy are you using disk level tools > ? ?

[DeckHazen]

I had (have) a very similar experience (hopefully published soon) - if I get a good answer I'll let you know

[gothamsreckoning]

I'm not familiar with disk level tools sadly. Are you able to talk me through the process? Thank you

[Geek-9pm]

Here is some information that may help. Bit do not let it discourage you.
Lower level Hard Disk Tools:

Top 20 Free Disk Tools for SysAdmins
The free tool from EASUS is easy to use.
You may want to practice on a spare hard drive that does not have important data.
Free version:
https://www.easeus.com/partition-manager/epm-free.html
That program can resize the current partition and then you can create a new partition in the free space. The new partition will need to be a primary and the boot flag must be set to active.

[gothamsreckoning]

Thanks very much. If I was to buy a new hard drive, what is the process for cloning my current drive onto that?

[patio]

Your tablet wont take a HDD...and if you want Windows it will not run proper on an external HDD...
I would check the manuf. site to see what your options are on increasing storage...and then decide if it's worth the cabbage...

[Geek-9pm]

This video might be of some help.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4A8IYOwe7EY
He shows how to open up the HP .
He provides a piratical answer to the question of the OP.
He also recommends contacting HP even if it is not in warranty.