Let's Play Identify the Boot Partition

Okay from the location Windows was using your C:\ drive for User files, and on its own Windows didn't place anything on D:

I suggested you create another user, with admin rights so you could delete your current user and all hidden files associated with it.

Windows stores a lot of stuff down the hidden AppData path c:\users\dense\appdata. This is a hidden folder. Things like profiles and even Outlook 2016 mail can be found down this path. I wanted all this space to be marked free so CC Cleaner would overwrite.

Seven passes is way more than you need. One would kill it for most people to be able to recover. Three and you would likely need NSA resources.

Your boot drive, the one that contains Windows is C:. You will see this in your disk management shot. In brackets it says boot)

So you could use CC Cleaner to wipe free space on C:. As it is a third of the size it won't take as long.

You handle the Appdata path anyway you wish, I gave you my way of handling by deleting the Dense user.

The two little partition on Disk 1, 100MB and 500MB do not contain any data. The 100MB tells the systems where to find windows and the 500MB is a recovery partition so you can boot and "Fix" things.

Hope this helps.

Dense said:

Bottomline though, back to my original query - Which of the partitions on the solid state drive (C) is the one that holds the W10 OS?

Partition 1, the EFI System Partition is essential for the PC to boot. Its job is to load the OS from the Windows partition (that's partition 3, the C: partition). No personal data ever gets written to the EFI System partition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EFI_system_partition

Partition 2, the Recovery Partition, was created when Windows was installed. It only contains Microsoft's WinRE recovery environment, accessed only when you boot to the Advanced Startup options. Again, personal data never gets written here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window...ry_Environment

Bottom line, all three partitions are part of the Windows system. Leave them as they are.

but you do need to wipe (overwrite) free space on C: and handle appdata path to get it all.

Caledon Ken said:

but you do need to wipe (overwrite) free space on C: and handle appdata path to get it all.

Resetting the PC selecting the 'remove everything' option, followed by a wipe of the free space on C: should 'depersonalise' the PC. I understand that the D: drive has already been wiped, if not, that should be done too.

Reset Windows 10