trying to update my iPad and it is saying no storage when I'm doing it from iTunes

The message that you see - related to lack of disk space - refers not to your iPad free space, but to the available space on your computer.

When using iTunes on a PC or Mac computer to update your iPad, the update package must be downloaded, unpacked and verified on the computer before it can be installed on the iPad. For this your computer must have adequate free space on its local Hard Disk storage. If you don’t have adequate space, you’ll see the error/warning that you observe.

Got it working. Thanks, everyone!

Must make at least 8 GB free space on Windows O/S "C:" drive to extract the 5.6 GB download.

The latest update to iPhone to date is iOS 15.2. In its entirety (not the incremental update) this file, which is named "iPhone_4.7_P3_15.2_19C56_Restore.ipsw" and resides on appldnld.apple.com, is about 5.6GB. Yes, larger than a DVD movie! It is suggested to download this file on a PC that is connected by ethernet wire LAN, not WiFi; then the download will be faster. On a LAN at DSL (3 GB/s) speeds, the download takes about 5 hours. Over Wifi, at same DSL routed speeds, it's about a day and a half (wireless is much slower and much less reliable).

To transfer this huge file to the iTunes PC, such as a MS Surface 3, which is wireless only and has no ethernet port, you will have to use a USB Thumb Drive that is large enough. However, you will first need to (re)format your USB Thumb Drive for "exFAT" filesystem; the default FAT32 will not hold this huge .ipsw update file, since 4GB is the maximum size for FAT32.

Copy/paste the ipsw file to the D: drive of the MS Surface 3. You cannot install it directly from the USB Thumb Drive, because the MS Surface 3 only has one USB port, and you need that for the target iPhone being updated. Further, DO NOT copy/paste the ipsw file to the C: drive, because iTunes extracts only to the C: drive (can't be changed) and you need all the space you can get.

In iTunes, remember that ...

... "Update" means no data loss (re-load O/S only), and

... "Recover" means total data loss (wipe and factory restore).

Press and Hold the SHIFT key while clicking the Update button. This will present a file dialog box and allow you to choose the ipsw file that you downloaded earlier.

From then on, the process should proceed smoothly. When all is said and done, don't forget to delete the huge ipsw file from D: drive; it is probably still on the USB Thumb Drive, unless you already removed it from there, too.

You've probably never seen this screen, but if you do, it's a very good sign that iPhone will come back and nothing will be missing.

Oops! If you see this screen, it means you must make more space on Windows system drive C:, deleting or moving as much as possible (namely, the ipsw file) to other drives.

Remember to hold SHIFT key while clicking Update -- otherwise iTunes will download the huge file, again! Also, remember that "Update" means no data loss, and "Restore" means total data loss and complete wipe of i-device.

I have a similar problem.

Trying to update the iPhone 7, which as over 30GB free space (it's a 128GB model).

Host PC is a MS Surface 3, which has two partition drive letters each of 128GB.

The host C: drive is the Win10 O/S; the host D: drive is the user data and program stuff.

The C: drive is very full, less than 4GB free; the D: drive is about 1/3 empty.

There are very few installed programs and apps on the host; only Windows and all its updates. I deleted most of the Windows installers and .cab files.

It is VERY SAD that Apple completely refuses to write and create space-efficient code.

We all try to maintain a small "Carbon footprint", yet we do nothing about our "Software footprint".

We need a revolution in code size ecology. Seriously.

Any suggestion how to point iTunes at the D: drive so that it can extract there? Any tips most appreciated.

Also, take a close look at the "Light Phone", it may just be the way to go!

Bette