I was downloading Windows 10 to my hard drive in preparation for building my PC. The download was almost complete (about 98%) when my laptop unexpectedly restarted. I'm not sure if the installation was finished and it restarted on its own or if it just interrupted the download. After rebooting, I checked the storage on the drive and it says only about 4GB is used, but I thought the minimum storage required for Windows 10 was around 8GB. Can someone clarify if this is accurate? Do I need to redownload Windows 10?
5 Answers
From my experience installing Windows 10 last week, the initial install consumes around 60 to 70 GB after all the updates are applied. Even after disabling hibernation, it still took up quite a bit of space. So, expect around 100 to 120 GB total racked up on your drive.
You likely just downloaded a small installation file. After you install Windows 10, it should take up significantly more space than what you've got now. If you have any doubt, it’s safest to download the full installer again.
It sounds like you downloaded the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool instead of the full OS. It's better to save that onto a USB drive instead of directly to an HDD when you're preparing to install.
You didn't perform the installation yet, which is why there's only around 4GB taken up. Expect around 8GB for a clean install, plus another 20GB for updates and drivers. The files you see are just the installation files, not the full OS.
Just to clear things up, what you downloaded is likely not the full installation of Windows 10. The complete installation usually needs over 20GB of space. You'll need to create a USB installer using the Media Creation Tool or Rufus along with the downloaded ISO to actually install Windows after building your PC.
Got it! So the actual installation will be much larger once everything is set up. Thanks for clarifying!