Help needed to reinstall Windows 10.

Hi guys,

I have some questions about clean installing Windows 10. Basically I am trying to get around having to download Windows 10, burn it to cd, and reinstall. Can I use reset feature to clean install Windows 10? Will this give me a completely clean image to work from? I have three hard drives. The system drive is a Samsung EVO 840 Pro. The next drive is a OCZ Vertex 4. Finally I have a Hitachi 750GB platter. Will these other drives be formatted as well? If not what is the proper way to clean them? Would I just use their software to do a secure erase?

A while back when I first built this PC there was a website for drivers. I can't remember what it was called. It had all the newest and latest drivers as well as old ones. It also had driver downloads for motherboards with all the latest drivers. This way you would have the latest drivers instead of old original files from the motherboard manufacturer. Does anyone know which page this might be or have the link to a similar page? This would save me a lot of time of having to manually go to each hardware manufacturer and download the latest driver.

Thanks,
Rocky

If your windows 10 install is working fine driver wise, you can do the reset, if you choose to not keep files (assuming you have backed them up or moved them to one of the other two drives), then yes it would be a clean image so to speak.

I'd recommend to unplug the other two drives when doing this, however it shouldn't be necessary, as it is not an initial install or upgrade TO 10, when that has cause issues in some cases.

The reset procedure should not touch your other drives, only the C: (that upon which windows is installed)

I don't recommend all in one driver sites, my own opinion, grab from the hardware manufacturer,so you know it is genuine.

RWOne said:

If your windows 10 install is working fine driver wise, you can do the reset, if you choose to not keep files (assuming you have backed them up or moved them to one of the other two drives), then yes it would be a clean image so to speak.

I'd recommend to unplug the other two drives when doing this, however it shouldn't be necessary, as it is not an initial install or upgrade TO 10, when that has cause issues in some cases.

The reset procedure should not touch your other drives, only the C: (that upon which windows is installed)

I don't recommend all in one driver sites, my own opinion, grab from the hardware manufacturer,so you know it is genuine.

Cool thanks for your help. How should I go about formatting the other two drives? Should I use the secure erase feature that comes with the software for the drives?

If you want to secure erase the other two drives, I recommend MiniTool Partition Wizard Free. It has a function to wipe drives by writing zeros to the entire drive, writing ones to the entire drive, and combinations depending on how secure you want the erase to be.

Best Free Partition Manager for Windows | MiniTool Partition Free

I would highly recommend that you make yourself a rescue USB flash drive or DVD, though. It can be invaluable if something on your system crashes. My favorite is a combination Windows 10 USB installation disk/Kyhi Recovery drive.

USB Flash Drive - Create to Install Windows 10 - Windows 10 Forums

Then read my quote in the middle of the OP of this thread:
Windows 10 Recovery Tools - Bootable Rescue Disk - Windows 10 Forums

With the combination installation/Kyhi recovery drive you can fix just about that would cause your computer not to boot, including doing a clean install of Windows 10.

NavyLCDR said:

If you want to secure erase the other two drives, I recommend MiniTool Partition Wizard Free. It has a function to wipe drives by writing zeros to the entire drive, writing ones to the entire drive, and combinations depending on how secure you want the erase to be.

Best Free Partition Manager for Windows | MiniTool Partition Free

I would highly recommend that you make yourself a rescue USB flash drive or DVD, though. It can be invaluable if something on your system crashes. My favorite is a combination Windows 10 USB installation disk/Kyhi Recovery drive.

USB Flash Drive - Create to Install Windows 10 - Windows 10 Forums

Then read my quote in the middle of the OP of this thread:
Windows 10 Recovery Tools - Bootable Rescue Disk - Windows 10 Forums

With the combination installation/Kyhi recovery drive you can fix just about that would cause your computer not to boot, including doing a clean install of Windows 10.

Thanks for your help guys. I really appreciate you taking the time to respond.