Updates :: Checking For Updates Hangs After Disk Clean Up

When I run Check for Updates it just hangs. It says it is checking for updates and green progress bar is repeatedly running across, but nothing happens.

Before this problem arose I had just run disk clean-up including remove installation files and windows updates. The disk clean-up process removed about 59 GB including a large Windows.old folder.

I upgraded to Windows 8 from XP about 10 days ago. Windows update was working fine until the disk clean-up. I ran Check for Updates frequently after the upgrade to make sure I got all the updates, it worked perfectly well for both update and install.

I have tried Checking for Updates several times since running disk clean-up.

First time I ran it I had this error message: Windows Update error 0x8024a000 (only seen that one time)

I ran the Update Troubleshooter after that and it found/fixed the following:

Potential windows update database error detected 0x80070490 -Fixed
Windows update components must be fixed - fixed

The troubleshooter did not resolve the issue. I have run Check for Updates many times since with no more error messages, but it just hangs. When I run the Update troubleshhooter it fixes the same two issues as above.

Since the disk clean, Windows Update shows:

Most recent check for updates - Never
Updates were installed - Never.

As my Windows Updates were previously all succesfully installed, the history must have been cleared.

No error messages have been seen since that first one which has not repeated.