I installed windows 10 home and messed up the partitions need help

Chocolade · 08 Oct 2017

I downloaded the window installation tool to usb.
Then installed from the usb the windows took me hour on hours to install it. All the installation was so slow.
Took me whole night to install it.

Then i came happy to see that the windows is working fine but the for some reason hard disk E is now C and C is now G and D left as it was. So i have now windows on C and on G on G it's the old windows i didn't delete anything from G yet since i need to backup stuff but the whole system is very very very slow now.

System i mean the hard drives. C ( Was E ) i can hear the hard disk working hard when it's copying or running stuff. G (Was C) is very very slow and i think it have problems that's why i installed new clean windows again but instead install it on the original C the whole thing messed up the partitions names of the hard drives.

So if i want to copy something from G it's copying very very slow.
And i tried to make checking for problems on drive G but it will take more then 9 hours.

So i have some questions:

1. If i want to install windows again, doing it from usb is fine ? Or usb is very slow ? I'm not sure what the speed of the disk on key i'm using if it's 2.0 or 3.0

2. When installing the windows i can change/delete/add partitions but i'm getting confused since i don't see the partitons hard drive names(letters). Is there any way to know what partitions belong to what drive letter/name ?

3. My dvd in the pc is not working so i can't install windows a dvd. That leave me with the only option for now installing from a usb. I just wonder if i will buy a new dvd drive for the pc if installing from a dvd is faster much faster then usb ?

This is a screenshot of my partition/s now:

I installed windows 10 home and messed up the partitions need help-partition.jpg

Jimmyb · 08 Oct 2017

I have installed W10 from a USB and it was very quick. I ensured that the drive was "unallocated" and allowed it to instil its self, maybe an hour possibly less.

Samuria · 08 Oct 2017

When installing on a system with lots of hard drives you should disconnect all drives but c so you can mess up other drives it's also best to delete all partitions and let windows create what it needs. You can add drives back once windows is running ok and change drive letters if you want

alphanumeric · 09 Oct 2017

What I do is put all my user folders like Documents, Pictures, Music, etc. On a separate drive or partition. Then on a clean install, I delete all but that Data partition. Then let Windows install into the unallocated space. It then creates all the partitions it needs automatically. Then I just go to the properties > location tab for the above folders and move them to the new location on my Data drive.

My advice is to back up what you don't want to lose to external media, and start over. Then delete everything you can and install into the unallocated space at the start of the drive. Install should be a lot quicker than your first one. It likely did a lot of file transfers and or saving to a windows old folder. Once you get that first boot to your desktop, go have a look at your drive letters. Windows should be C:. The others can be anything you want them to be. Change them now, before you install anything or move any folder locations. If you want to partition, now is also the time to do it. It can also be done during setup if you do a custom install.
Clean Install Windows 10

NavyLCDR · 09 Oct 2017

Installing Windows 10 from a USB flash drive should be faster and more reliable than installing it from a DVD. If it took hours to install Windows 10 from a USB flash drive, then something is wrong. I would look first at making a new USB flash drive on a simple, but good name, just plain USB flash drive, from 8 to 32 GB in size. Like a generic SANDISK or Lexar.

When you install Windows 10 this time, disconnect the two 1 TB hard drives (you can pull just the power cable or SATA cable, I would do the power cable so you don't mix up SATA ports. When you get to the custom install screen during setup, you should see only the one hard drive listed. Delete every partition on it (and it looks like only 1 partition to me). This will erase EVERYTHING on the disk! Then highlight the unallocated space and click next to let Windows set it up. After you get that up and running, then reconnect the other two drives, and you can do a lot of cleaning up of their partitions after you Windows running.