Daring to reinstall W10!

[Cavallino]

Hello folks.

The last time I reinstall an OS on my PC was.... 2013?
Crazy considering I remember a time when I would reinstall an OS multiple times a day! How times have changed....

I think I did upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10 but that wasnt a reinstall rather an upgrade.

So as you can imagine Im a little apprehensive about the process and would like to ask your advice on what things I should prepare for when reinstalling.

Some questions I have:

1. I have my current OS on a separate SSD, I would like to use the same SSD, how do I go about formatting this? Or does Windows do this automatically when reinstalling Windows 10?
2. I have other SSDs HDDs as well, do I need to do anything to them before reinstalling? E.g. I remmeber something permisions because once I reinstall I am not sure if I can access them again in the new installation?

Sorry for the basic questions folks, but I do appreciate any insights you have. Thanks.

 

[Donnie Fisher]

1 - Its not really changed much from how you'll remember it. It normally asks you if you want to repair, upgrade or fresh install when you boot from the install media and start the install process. Then going through fresh install option will get to a stage of selecting which drive. At that point, you can normally get to select advanced options for partitioning drives if you want, and also formatting IIRC. As I say, the general install process and options are not much changed since Vista, if not XP.

2 - I know what you mean, I once had permission problems ... but that may be because of fitting a drive that was physically from another machine and expecting to see everything. In your case, the second drive has remained in the machine throughout. I recently had a laptop which I tried to setup for dual boot with linux and failed miserably. The laptop had an OS SSD and a data HDD. To fix, I ended up wiping all partitions on the OS SSD and re-installing windows from scratch on it (A full clean install from a USB bootdrive). I had pre-downloaded all the necessary drivers for the laptop to the data HDD. When I got into windows after the clean install, I was able to immediately see the data HDD fine and pull all the drivers from it without any issue at all.

That being said, I kept the same windows account login for Win10 before and after the reinstall procedure ... so my credentials / permissions likely remained / matched.

So I think you should be fine. Just don't select the wrong drive to format at the install stage !

 

[LeMson]

Backup anything you need on drive your installing w10 on, Disconnect all the hdds and ssds bar the one you want w10 on, plug in w10 USB, boot from USB, follow instructions, format it, install, get in w10 do all updates, when ready, shutdown and reconnect hdds + ssds

 

[liltimmy]

Its a lot easier than it used to be! You don't even need to disconnect secondary drives anymore which is handy. Use rufus to flash the windows install iso onto a usb stick. Boot from it.

If you want to do a fresh install (otherwise windows will just move your current install into a Windows.old folder, which isnt necessarily a bad thing). Follow through the motions to install and when you get to an option where you can press custom/advanced then you have the choice to format your SSD. Be sure you know how big that SSD is in capacity so you can identify it. Then once you're certain, delete all partitions for that drive. It'll then just be one entry thats unallocated and you can hit next! The rest will guide you through it.

Once you're in (or even better if you download it beforehand) i'd recommend using ninite to get back most of the common programs you use. If you want you can google oos10 to turn of various Windows 10 telemetry but that bits up to you!

 

[Cavallino]

Wow you guys were right, much easier than before.
Just a bit of a pain having to install everything again.

I do have a question about motherboard drivers and all that stuff... I have a Z87-G45 MSI motherboard (fairly old ).
Can I trust that W10 will install the drivers or do I need to install the drivers as recommended on the MSI page? (Many of them are many years old though).

Im also using the onboard Realtek audio, should I use the MSI one or is there a generic one? (Although having said that Windows audio is working so I guess it must have picked up the drivers already?(

Thanks again folks It was much more painless than I though.

 

[Cavallino]

Anyone folks?

 

[Delta3D]

Wow you guys were right, much easier than before.
Just a bit of a pain having to install everything again.

I do have a question about motherboard drivers and all that stuff... I have a Z87-G45 MSI motherboard (fairly old ).
Can I trust that W10 will install the drivers or do I need to install the drivers as recommended on the MSI page? (Many of them are many years old though).

Im also using the onboard Realtek audio, should I use the MSI one or is there a generic one? (Although having said that Windows audio is working so I guess it must have picked up the drivers already?(

Thanks again folks It was much more painless than I though.

I'd trust that Windows will pick these up - I always find it worth plonking a network driver onto the USB you're using just incase then you won't be left standing with no connection to download the drivers

 

[Cavallino]

What a far cry from a decade/more ago....
Having to ensure you download all the relevant drivers for your motherboard, etc etc.
Everything is now just.... surreally different

I did download the network driver before updating, but Windows picked this up anyway!

Any thoughts about the audio driver?

Thanks for confirming @Delta3D.

 

[Tute]

I'd just trust the inbuilt drivers unless you have any issues that the site ones claim to fix. The exception to this is graphics card drivers, you should always keep these updated from the nVidia/AMD site.

Having said that, I just use sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade and let my OS do the rest.

 

[Cavallino]

Cheers @Tute
Had to google sudo apt update etc.... bit beyond me
(I guess this is some kind of script/command to allow automatic updates of programs instead of having to go to the each website and install them separately?)

 

[Delta3D]

What a far cry from a decade/more ago....
Having to ensure you download all the relevant drivers for your motherboard, etc etc.
Everything is now just.... surreally different

I did download the network driver before updating, but Windows picked this up anyway!

Any thoughts about the audio driver?

Thanks for confirming @Delta3D.

Audio-wise the onboard Realtek one will be fine

 

[Tute]

Cheers @Tute
Had to google sudo apt update etc.... bit beyond me
(I guess this is some kind of script/command to allow automatic updates of programs instead of having to go to the each website and install them separately?)

It's for madmen like me that run Linux as their daily driver.

 

[Cavallino]

Ah got it Thanks folks.
Got to say the reinstall process was A LOT simpler than I expected.
Only pain is reinstalling everything which has taken me the best part of a day!

 

[bledd]

Backup anything you need on drive your installing w10 on, Disconnect all the hdds and ssds bar the one you want w10 on, plug in w10 USB, boot from USB, follow instructions, format it, install, get in w10 do all updates, when ready, shutdown and reconnect hdds + ssds

This.

 

[Cavallino]

Yes indeed "that". It was as simple as that.

 

[LeMson]

liltimmy said you don't need to unplug all hdd's etc, and you may not these days, I still would suggest it though as no program can install and mess things up on other drives if they are physically not connected

 

[Cavallino]

Yes I did that actually just to be on the safe side!