Windows 10 recovery doesnt wipe my hard-disk

luk7189 · 07 Nov 2019

I want to clean re-install windows on my PC. I've already backed up all the files I want onto an external drive, and simply want to wipe ALL files on my internal drive and ssd. I want to then cleanly re-install windows and essentially start from scratch.

I went to settings > Update & Security > Recovery > Reset this PC and selected remove everything. I changed the settings to remove all files from all drives but when I click "show me the list of drives that will be affected" only "D:" drive is listed. The first time round, when I did this, it only removed everything from my C: drive (the way I intended).

However as seen in my disk management - I want to remove the (disk 0 partition 2) which has the system partition in it. I don't know why this drive now has my system partition either.

Windows 10 recovery doesnt wipe my hard-disk-disk_management.png

I'm confused as to what to do and what the issue is to just start anew.

Please help!

Pejole2165 · 07 Nov 2019

Please see the Tutorials section...Installation and Upgrades....Clean Install Windows, second page 2nd link down.

dalchina · 07 Nov 2019

Hi, to clean install Windows you need to create a bootable flash drive or other medium from which to boot your PC. That's covered at Step 1 of the tutorial shown below (Clean Install..)

Windows 10 Tutorial Index
- searchable list of tutorials - search that page for
clean install
and you will see this as 2nd link found
Clean Install Windows 10

At step 13/14 you have the option presented to you where you can delete existing partitions.

Note: some suggest- as you have a desktop- physically disconnecting other drives just to ensure Windows is installed exclusively on the one drive.