Clean Install Windows 10  

User5344 said:

Finally did a clean install and everything is fine.

My tries of that never worked but eventually I have got it working. See message 115 on Refresh Windows 10 - Page 12 - | Tutorials (tenforums.com)

Hi Brink,

First off, apologies for coming so late to this party, but as with all your tutorials I've had recourse to refer to (and there's been a few!), it is highly informative and well written - thank you!


Currently I am planning towards clean installing W10 Home 20H1 onto an 11-year old Toshiba C660 laptop. Fundamentally this should work fine as it's already upgraded from its original Win 7 to 1909>20H2>21H1 and is running pretty well (especially after upgrading to an SSD and 8G of RAM).

Thing is, despite all my efforts, over time, to clean up as much of the original bloatware as poss, there's still a lot of it that I'm unsure about if/how to remove, so a clean install has become a very enticing prospect.

The SSD is 500GB partitioned approx. equally, with Windows, Programs etc on one ("C drive") and a multitude of various files (typically large) on the other ("D drive"). There are also TWO recovery partitions - the original Toshiba ~500MB, and a Win 10 one, also ~500MB, created during the upgrade(s).

Until I read your tutorial, my plan was to delete and merge the C drive and the 2 Rec Parts into one single unallocated partition, whilst leaving the D drive as is. But this apparently is not the recommended approach if a System Reserved partition is desired [ref to Step 14 of your tutorial . BTW the laptop is BIOS, and not UEFI capable, so its MBR mode only].

If you want to have (recommended) the 450 MB (UEFI-GPT) or 500 MB (Legacy BIOS-MBR) System Reserved partition in addition to the Windows C: partition on a HDD or SSD after installation, then you would need to make sure that all partitions on the drive have been deleted until it is only unallocated space. Next, select the unallocated drive to install Windows on. If there are no partitions on the disk, you will get the System Reserved partition.

If you do not want to have the 450 MB (UEFI-GPT) or 500 MB (Legacy BIOS-MBR) System Reserved partition and only the Windows C: partition on a HDD or SSD after installation, then select a formatted partition or drive to install Windows on. If there are any partitions on the disk, you won't get the System Reserved partition.

So, if I adopted my planned approach:-

1) What are the risks to my D drive partition's contents/integrity (if I dont/cannot back it up first)?

2) What are the risks to the Windows installation integrity/outcome and would I get a single, new Recovery (System Reserved?) partition (which I'd like to have)?

Apologies for long-wind query!

Any guidance gratefully appreciated,

Loo

Keep the D: drive separate. It is always risky if that data is important and you do not have a backup. This is not from the steps you plan to take, but from drive failure or other corruption.

1) No risk to the D: drive by doing a clean install, just make sure that the install is point at the C: drive.
2) Some danger that a required drives is not available or does not work, but if the process fails just do a restore from an image back and search for a solution. Yes the install will produce a new Recovery Reserved partition. Use Disk Management and Ragentc to identify which partition it is.

Loo said:

1) What are the risks to my D drive partition's contents/integrity (if I dont/cannot back it up first)

I do a lot of testing based on clean installs and prefer using an old laptop rather than use a VM. I keep my tools, utilities, REG files, and scripts, etc. in a partition labelled 'Test'. Each clean install I wipe all partitions on the laptop's SSD except 'Test' and install into the unallocated space.

I must have done this dozens and dozens of times now with each successive version of Windows 10. I've never had a problem.

(Whenever I update the contents of 'Test' I do a partition backup of it using Macrium Reflect... just in case. 'Test' is a tiny partition so it takes less than a minute. I've never once needed to restore it.)

Hope this helps...

@RickC
Thanks for sharing your experience. That's what I would expect also, based on my past (pre Win 10) experiences of installing afresh into HDD/SDD with multiple partitions.

I still remain unclear, however, regarding whether or not I will get the a Recovery partition. Per Brink's Step 14 it would seem not unless I delete my entire drive?

Loo

Hi Brink

And thank you for that clarification.

Meantime time I've been doing a bit of research about Win 10 partitions and found these articles, for anyone interested:-

Partititions with Win 10 BIOS/MBR...

Partititions with Win 10 UEFI/GPT...

Assume these articles remain correct to this day, then there seems to be some ambiguity (for me, at any rate) between what is referred to as the System Reserved partition. I also see now that this not the Recovery partition!

Anyway, thanks for the steer - I think I know what I'm doing now!!!

Loo