Windows 10 Upgrade - Secondary drives formatting advice


  1. Posts : 2
    Windows 7
       #1

    Windows 10 Upgrade - Secondary drives formatting advice


    Good day all, hope everyone is well! I'm getting ready to take the plunge and upgrade from Windows 7 to 10. Now the plan is to format my SSD with my OS and the like on but my question is will I have to format my two 1TB drives?

    There's about 1.5TB's of stuff on them that I would like to keep as I have a download speed that can be likened to an injured snail. The bulk of the stuff on there is games from Steam, Uplay, Origin and Battle.net.

    So, what's the best way to go about this? Will I encounter problems moving to 10 without reformatting all 3 drives? and will I have problems accessing all the games on the 2nd and 3rd drive given that Steam and the other game clients are all on the SSD and will need reinstalling after I format and upgrade?

    Apologies for all the questions being lumped into one thread! Thanks in advance for any help! :)
      My Computer


  2. Posts : 4,453
    Win 11 Pro 22000.708
       #2

    If you use the free Windows 10 upgrade, you must install it as an upgrade over your existing Win 7 installation. (I believe that you also have to keep files, settings, and applications.) If you don't do that, it won't activate.

    Once you have activated one time, you may clean install and activate any time on the same hardware.

    If you do a clean install of the OS, applications on other drives may or may not work, like for previous versions of Windows. Applications that use installers write stuff to the Windows Registry, which is lost when you clean install. Those applications may not run.

    If you do a clean install, you won't need to format the non-OS disks, but you may need to re-install any applications that you have there.

    My suggestion? See if the straight upgrade works OK.
      My Computers


  3. Posts : 14,046
    Windows 11 Pro X64 22H2 22621.1848
       #3

    I would also disconnect the other drives until after the upgrade.
      My Computers


  4. Posts : 2
    Windows 7
    Thread Starter
       #4

    Smashing, thanks for the help guys, I'll give that a go!
      My Computer


 

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