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UEFI newbie: How to wipe the whole disk?
Hi geeks.
I am a total UEFI n00b, only having one PC with it all others being legacy BIOS systems. I know my way around BIOS and have now familiarized myself with UEFI settings, I think that in settings and how to change them / what they do I do not need help.
My issues are with a clean install wiping the whole disk, and to understand the partitioning. This PC had an OEM German Windows 8.1 which I upgraded to 8.1 Pro, then replaced the German 8.1 Pro with an UK English one simply by clean installing a retail 8.1 Pro on top of the German one, not wiping the disk but the "traditional" way which simply moved the German OS to Windows.old folder which I later removed.
The UK English 8.1 Pro was later upgraded to 10 Pro Build 10240, further to builds 10525, 10532 and finally now to 10547. Now I would like to start from scratch, clean install totally wiping the disk.
Questions:
- Why three recovery partitions (white highlight in screenshot above). I understand the last one, it's the manufacturer's recovery partition which allows me to restore the original OEM German Windows 8.1. But why the two others?
- How do I proceed with clean installing Build 10547 wiping the whole disk? I tried it, got to disk tools in setup, removed all other partitions but the dialog didn't let me to delete the partition C: (yellow highlight)
- Essentially I would like to start from this situation (screenshot from this TF tutorial), whole disk unallocated space, partition it as I want to and install Windows. If this was a BIOS system I could easily do it, the Windows Setup Disk Tools dialog creating the System Reserved automatically when I create the first partition in that unallocated space, but UEFI seemingly lets me to delete all other partitions but not the C:
Any insight greatly appreciated, please help me to understand the UEFI. Please notice that I have recent system images allowing me to restore this functioning system anytime I want to, making experimenting easy.
Kari, a n00b