Help installing P3D - installer gives "not enough disk space" error on 250GB HDD

Hi everyone, I'm new here and new to P3D. Instrument rated private pilot trying to set up a simulator for IFR proficiency and practicing emergencies at home. I have a snag with the installation, and would appreciate links to articles or tips.

I am trying to install P3D on a MacBook Pro with Windows 10/Bootcamp, 25GB Windows partition, to a 250GB external HDD. I initially formatted the external drive as NTFS from Mac Disk Utility. In Windows, I tried to move the Prepar3D ZIP file to it and said insufficient space. Solved that by formatting the partition from within Windows and successfully moved the install ZIP.

When I open the Prepar3D installer and begin the sequence, the progress bar begins, and eventually it gives me an “insufficient disk space” error, even though the target disk is the external hard drive with 250GB available. Any idea why this is happening and tips for me to troubleshoot? Thanks!

Tim

You need about 12 gig of headspace for the temporary and swap files during installation.

You should remove or move files to free up the necesasry space. However, it doesn't sound you are gong to have sufficient room on a 25 gig partition for the sim and Windows.

Sorry, thought I'd added the freely available System Requirements

http://www.prepar3d.com/system-requirements/

30 GB, with at least 10GB on C:\

(3 GB for the SDK)

Solid State Drive (SSD) is strongly recommended

As that is the basic install, ain't no way your 25 gig partition is enough. Double it, at least

Thanks mallcott and DukeSan27 for the tips. I'll have a look over the weekend when the noreaster is expected and hopefully this will clear up the issue.

Tim

The key elements are;

1: OS and sim on same drive - bootcamp eliminates any advantage to the OS on a different drive so one large partition may be better in your situation

2: Make it an SSD if possible - solves any parallel loading issues.

3: Make sure you have a powerful GPU - and preferably an Nvidia.

4: Use the HDD for subsequent addons like scenery or aircraft which are loaded into memory

and other considerations are

1: P3D is not licensed for training purposes. Not an issue for private practice at home, but be aware

2: You need suitable hardware to simulate properly - cheap old joysticks won't cut it. For what you are looking to do at minimum you will need a yoke, rudder pedals and throttle assembly (that may or may not, come with the yoke)

3: For reasonable fidelity you will need addon aircraft that approximate your PP proficiency needs. The defaults are not suitable.

Factor for about 700-800 bucks beyond the sim itself.

The key elements are;

 

1: OS and sim on same drive - bootcamp eliminates any advantage to the OS on a different drive so one large partition may be better in your situation

2: Make it an SSD if possible - solves any parallel loading issues.

3: Make sure you have a powerful GPU - and preferably an Nvidia.

4: Use the HDD for subsequent addons like scenery or aircraft which are loaded into memory

 

and other considerations are

 

1: P3D is not licensed for training purposes. Not an issue for private practice at home, but be aware

2: You need suitable hardware to simulate properly - cheap old joysticks won't cut it. For what you are looking to do at minimum you will need a yoke, rudder pedals and throttle assembly (that may or may not, come with the yoke)

3: For reasonable fidelity you will need addon aircraft that approximate your PP proficiency needs. The defaults are not suitable.

 

Factor for about 700-800 bucks beyond the sim itself.

+1! Though that may actually be a tad low. Though considering the per hour cost of RW IFR flying, $1,000 isn't any money.

When I looked to re-size my Bootcamp partition, I found it was already 50GB so I misquoted above. Before I go through what looks to be an extensive effort to re-size, why would the 50GB not be enough to install P3D?

Could anything else be the issue?

Tim

When I looked to re-size my Bootcamp partition, I found it was already 50GB so I misquoted above. Before I go through what looks to be an extensive effort to re-size, why would the 50GB not be enough to install P3D?

 

Could anything else be the issue?

 

Tim

But how much is free? Windows itself would take 25-30GB.

But how much is free? Windows itself would take 25-30GB.

And Windows (like other operating systems) doesn't like to have a disk drive with less than 15%-20% free space, minimum, as it needs (among other things) scratch pad space.

Hi everyone, I'm new here and new to P3D. Instrument rated private pilot trying to set up a simulator for IFR proficiency and practicing emergencies at home. I have a snag with the installation, and would appreciate links to articles or tips.

 

I am trying to install P3D on a MacBook Pro with Windows 10/Bootcamp, 25GB Windows partition, to a 250GB external HDD. I initially formatted the external drive as NTFS from Mac Disk Utility. In Windows, I tried to move the Prepar3D ZIP file to it and said insufficient space. Solved that by formatting the partition from within Windows and successfully moved the install ZIP.

 

When I open the Prepar3D installer and begin the sequence, the progress bar begins, and eventually it gives me an “insufficient disk space” error, even though the target disk is the external hard drive with 250GB available. Any idea why this is happening and tips for me to troubleshoot? Thanks!

 

Tim

Another thing that got missed is that P3D will also eat a gig or so on your windows partition even if you choose to install it to a different drive. files end up getting put in your Programdata folder regardless of the install drive. SO if your Windows partition was getting full , then it probably will not work either.

I don't know about Win10 but on Win7 there's also a large amount of duplication that takes place in C:\ProgramData\Package Cache which is completely unnecessary. You can delete that and then run the three individual Install_Client.msi, Install_Scenery.msi, and Install_Content.msi installers instead of setup.exe. My educated guess is that those 3 installers run individually won't copy the entire 10 Gb to the Package Cache folder like setup.exe does, effectively saving 10 Gb of needlessly used space during the install. I say "educated" because that was my experience with P3D v2.x installing with Prepar3D.msi vs setup.exe.

My understanding is the only reason Package Cache is put there is so you can run the repair option from Control Panel > Programs & Features instead of simply running your downloaded installer again.