I’ve had a search on here and elsewhere but I can’t find a definitive answer.
Asus EeeBook X205T with eMMC storage, originally Windows 8.1.
It’s had the free upgrade to Win 10 and timba jnr has filled it with as many apps as you can fit onto 32 GB.
I’ve now inherited the notebook for a bit of web and email use and I want to clean it up; apparently Linux isn’t an easy option on these so I’ll stick with Win 10.
If I Reset this PC/Remove Everything, will I wind it back to 8.1 (I don’t want this)?
What’s the easiest/best/safest option?
There isn’t a CD/DVD drive
TIA

If I Reset this PC/Remove Everything, will I wind it back to 8.1 (I don’t want this)?
What’s the easiest/best/safest option?

No. It’ll revoke to the last build of W10 you installed. Do that.

How big is the hard drive on it?

Does it have a recovery/image partition? You can find this out in http://www.disk-partition.com/windows-10/windows-10-disk-management-0528.html

What version of Windows did it come with from factory?

Cougar, thanks

mattyfez, it’s not to hand just now, I’ll have a look later, thanks
8.1 from new

Does it have a recovery/image partition?

In addition to OS(C:), it has an EFI system partition (100MB) and a recovery partition (449MB).
Both are 100% free….empty??

They won’t be empty, the recovery partition will be a factory windows 8 image. If that’s what the laptop originally came with.

If you’ve upgraded to 10, you can probably delete that partition and expand your your c drive to get more hard drive space. A partition is basically a pretend line that splits one hard disk into two or more smaller disks.

But I’ve had a few drinks so don’t do anything dramatic!

Hmmm, “Could not find the recovery environment…insert recovery media…and restart…”
I don’t have any media

(mattyfez, s’not your doing, no partitions changed 😉 )

I’ll revisit this tomorrow as I am a bit squiffy.
Unless it’s a drive failure then worst case you should be able to revert back to win 8, then re upgrade to 10.

if it’s had the free upgrade to W10 you should be able to just download the image (or whatever it’s called) from microsoft and start from that.

The ID of the computer/licence will be on microsofts servers somewhere already.

I only know this as i had to rebuild our PC once someone decided to download a couple of viruses. Quicker to start from scratch than trying to clean it up.

…just download the image

Thanks, cleared the specified 3GB, and then it demanded 8GB, cleared some more. Downloading and “Progress 17%” now…

Ok, all done now except that I’ve now got two recovery partitions; one at 449MB (the original??) and one at 450MB. I wouldn’t mind reclaiming one, a clean Win 10 is 23GB leaving me with 5GB free

If you run disk cleanup, you will probably be able to recover a lot of space. Win10 should be smaller than 23GB IME.

Sometimes the easiest is to download W10 onto a USB key from the Microsoft site – the tool thing, and install a completely fresh copy of W10. Plug the key in and hit fn12 or whatever to get boot options and boot to the key, then follow instructions always opting for the most radical clear out. When you get to the disk partition bit just eliminate all the partitions (it’ll create what it needs). On computers with W8 or 10 you won’t need a W10 product key code number, earlier models buy one, they’re not expensive.

You end up with a completely new W10, no rubbish to slow it down guaranteed no nasties lingering. All nice and clean. And it takes a fraction of the time of restoring.

Edit save all the product key numbers and codes for any other programmes such as word before startintg.

^^ that’s what I’d do.

^^^ I did that – W10 image from Microsoft on a USB stick
It just worked – drivers and everything correctly picking up that the PC has a SSD system disc and two mirrored normal discs for data.
I would have been in trouble if I had to tell it to do that..

But to be sure might be worth going to the laptop manufacturer website and getting the drivers on another usb stick – hopefully wont need them.

This might be a good thread to hijack…..

I have a Dell PC that’s been running for the past 5-6 year. It was originally W7 but I took advantage of the free W10 upgrade.
I was thinking of wiping it and putting on a clean install to get rid of the years of crap. I think the USB key thing should be fine. However, I was also thinking I might go down the SSD route at the same time.

Two issues then; (a) can I now do a clean install of W10 and (b) will the SSD cause it to look like a “new” system and require a new W10 licence?

Two issues then; (a) can I now do a clean install of W10 and (b) will the SSD cause it to look like a “new” system and require a new W10 licence?

a) Yes
b) Probably not, but even if it does, you shouldn’t have any trouble getting it reactivated without needing to buy a new licence.

If you run disk cleanup, you will probably be able to recover a lot of space. Win10 should be smaller than 23GB IME.

Thanks hols2, I ran disk cleanup and it’s about half that size now

Sometimes the easiest is to download W10 onto a USB key from the Microsoft site

I used the More Recovery Options clean installation to get my two recovery partitions. Then I took Edukators advice and downloaded to USB, but I can’t get the USB to boot largely thanks to Asus BIOS security options.
The notebook spent the night on the kitchen table while the battery ran down so that I could exit the BIOS, no amount of esc, F10, or anything else would do it.
So, thanks to all who contributed, I now have a working notebook with plenty of storage without bloat.
When I can face the BIOS again I’ll have another go at installation without extra partitions. And to those who do this for a living, I salute you 🙂

Sometimes the easiest is to download W10 onto a USB key from the Microsoft site

Nearly forgot, this also gave me the option to install 64-bit Win 10…the notebook is 64-bit capable, but because the 8.1 installation was originally 32-bit, that’s what More Recovery Options installs in Win 10. Another reason to try the USB option

Problem with the X205T is that 2GB RAM is (as far as I can tell) not upgradable. 64bit Windows will consume a lot more memory, which will force it into using the (slow) eMMC storage by paging out memory a lot, which makes the whole thing very slow. That’s often why 32bit versions are installed on low spec fixed 2GB devices. Also sometimes while the processor may be 64bit capable, the bios may not support it.

There aren’t many issues running 32bit Windows on 64bit. Intel chips can run 32bit on 64bit just as fast, and in some cases faster (64bit gives access to more than 4GB memory though).

Storage is also extremely low in the X205T at 32GB. My Dell tablet has 64GB and I find that limited. I use a microSD to expand it, but beware that this will be far slower than the onboard eMMC, and in my experience microSD can be very unreliable and die at the drop of a hat, so back up frequently and/or use the cloud. I moved OneDrive and changed all the default personal storage settings to use the SD.

Two issues then; (a) can I now do a clean install of W10 and (b) will the SSD cause it to look like a “new” system and require a new W10 licence?

Yes.
No.

The notebook spent the night on the kitchen table while the battery ran down so that I could exit the BIOS, no amount of esc, F10, or anything else would do it.

You couldn’t exit the BIOS? Weird.

Why did you wait for the battery to run out, is it not removable? Failing that, holding the power button down should shut it off.

Also, what Kenny said. There’s no reason to install x64 on a netbook and several reasons not to.

@deadkenny and Cougar
Thanks, 32-bit it is. It’s working just fine so I’ll leave well alone

@Cougar
The BIOS went into a sulk shortly before I did and after several changes to try to get the USB stick to boot. The battery is somewhere inside and the notebook wouldn’t respond to any button pushes. The simplest option seemed to be to let the battery die, undo the BIOS changes and leave well alone (that phrase again 🙂 )

Pressing the power button might not do anything, but holding it down for a few seconds absolutely should. There may be exceptions but I don’t recall ever seeing a machine where this didn’t work.

In terms of disk space there’s a couple of extra things you can try. Running disk cleanup as Administrator will give you a few extra options – you can either click “Clean up system files” in the app window, or hit the Windows key, type “disk cleanup” to get the icon to appear, then right-click / run as administrator. The latter is faster as it only has to scan the drive once. (I’m guessing you’ve already done this given your previous comments, but I’ll just chuck it out here anyway for the benefit of others.)

For getting rid of temp files and assorted cruft, I recommend TFC. CCleaner is well regarded but has a lot of options and the ability to cause damage if you don’t know what you’re doing, TFC has just two options (Start and Exit).