Windows 10: Advice for a Windows 10 clean install

To further illustrate the point about running with primary partitions for singular or dual purposes such as having a second data/recovery partition on the larger drive of course you will see how backup as well as OS drives generally see the primary type unless laying out server drives such as in Home Server type setups. Whenever going to create a new partition while in the Disk Management tool in Windows by default you see a new primary or extended type created when you select either. When laying out two drives that would see an OS on each as far as two different version of Windows for a dual or multi-boot like 10/7


The extended partitions are typically when the maximum partition size of the OS has been reached like with 7 figure right up near and not over 2ttb. I'm still trying to find out if 10 has come along since then when considering the now seen large capacity drives when possibly considering a 2.5tb or larger model here. W7 would need to see a drive like that split up while 10???





As I mentioned earlier two drives had to be removed from the desktop and the W10 drive had been wiped clean first by a clone of the previous 7 host drive followed by the two repeat clean installs of 7 for the 10 upgrade. Once all files and folders are backed up onto the 3rd temp storage drive the other two will be wiped clean to see brand new primaty type single partitions go on. I suspect one may have to trashed entirely later however if still found to be seeing errors showing the drive has lived it's day!

 

The 2 TB limitation can be avoided by initializing the disc as GPT rather than MBR.

Windows cannot see any portion of an MBR disk above roughly 2.2 TB, regardless of your partitioning scheme or partition types.

Some motherboard manufacturers (Gigabyte for one) have supplied a software download that tricks Windows into thinking that the space above 2.2 TB on a given MBR disc is in fact a separate disc---when it isn't in reality.

I've never played with these tricks and have no idea how well it works, but you don't need that if you simply initialize as GPT--in which case you can make a single partition on a 3 or 4 TB disc and all of it is recognized.

 

No point in hating it. if you don't want to upgrade is simple just go buy a copy of windows 10 and run your dual boot as normal. of course If you want the free upgrade you'll have to upgrade.

 

SA LA VE' MS eeeeeekkk!!!*Eek*Roflmao2 MS is obviously trying out a new marketing strategy as well as improving on their two platform OS designs with 10. Rather then providing product keys for an otherwise free deal they are using the existing keys from activation of the previous versions in order to verify you are running a genuine Windows before simply handing the reins for 10 over to you! Makes good business sense since the upgrades are not simply intended for custom builds only but mobile devices as well as other OEM desktops, all in ones, laptops, tablets, etc.

Here it only will be a matter of time before seeing the clean install go as I first try out each program as well as backup which drivers for previous versions will still work on 10. One is a mother board Lan driver for 8.1 that will be tried out next while 10 already downloaded updates for video with the blink of an eye from AMD. So far once 10 was on the second time when the upgrade had to be repeated in order to correct some issues the upgrade has been running smoothly despite some issues with storage drives it seems! *Sad

Thanks for the info! I have a Gigabyte board on the build here and all seems to going well as far as the board is concerned with either the 10 installer's generic drivers or through the updates seen during the upgrade. The main concern however was already knowing one of the two Sata 3 storage drives has been acting up by being hard to access as well as finding one of the sata power plugs would simply slip off when putting another drive in! Presently the drive that had been in the external usb enclosure didn't work when first installed when the bad plug was noticed and the problem with the S3 drive remains while not as bad now that it is in the enclosure!

Presently still backing up the last few folders from that before it gets tossed! The idea for a 2tb or larger drive has been on the mind since that 1tb drive was used to back up the first of the two by repeat storage when also seeing system image backups not able to fit on the first drive. Need a larger drive even if it has to see two or three partitions. Maybe one of these days MS will get past the 2tb and onto the 2000tb barrier instead? *Biggrin

 

Thank you Night Hawk and ignatzatsonic,

I was able to do a real clean install and followed your advice about minimizing partitions on the SSD. I could not install the OS on the SDD with the HDD in place. I think it is because the HDD was configure Dynamic. Removing the HDD allowed to perform the install, but I did not end up with the four partitions as stated in the tutorial. I have only two:





Further, I am not sure how to reformat the HDD to give it maximum utility while still being removable if I ever must use the DVD drive. Though I must say that I do not find myself having need of a DVD. I do have the HDD backed up on my NAS, so I can start from scratch on that as well. Just not sure how.

 

The upgrade attempts failed for a few days from early Wednesday to Saturday between first assuming the clone of 7 was at fault. Then the dvd was thought to be a bad burn.

Following the nuke of the second and everything else mentioned it was those storage drive still being plugged in! It wasn't the Dynamic partitioning there so much as the second drive simply lacking any OS already seeing boot entries and a boot loader for that OS the 10 installer doesn't see and then places the 10 files and MBR info there instead of on the ssd! Surprise! This is why following the guide here closely works out! *Biggrin

As for four partitions Shawn was referring to maximum number of Primary type partitions you can see on any drive. for going past four you would then need to change the approach from MBR to GPT as mentioned ealier by ignatzatsonic Extended type partitions can be numerous on the other hand while they cannot see any boot loader or boot information added on as a rule. That's as far as the Windows operating system is concerned while servers are more likely to see extended volumes to begin with.

Now if you are trying to nuke what is on the second drive and have a fresh start Disk Part used at the command prompt as well as the GUI method right there in the Disk Management tool can zap what is on the drive presently to allow you to create a brand new primary as well as deciding on how large the second backup partition will be by first creating the new OS primary to the size you calculate will suffice for 7 or the second OS. You simply can right click on each or drop down the Actions menu and open Tasks to the right to see a new simple volume created where you then right click on that to see the popup screen for choosing the file system either NTFS or Fat 32 and then click the format button.

In a minute or so you can see two partions created and if you decided to opt out of having a dual boot you can either nuke the second and expand the first, nuke everything to create one single partition for storage and backup, OR and note this elect to see a separate partition where you would store any full system image backups as well as any scheduled partial backups of folder, files, user account, etc. while keeping any growing number of other not so important files on a larger storage partition if you leave the drive split up that is. Here I would simply have one large volume for both images and countless folders to be added as I go along and with the two drives the second saw system images originally until the second OS was left pending for the next to come following 7 at the time.

Now since you are on a laptop and mentioned having external drive capacities available you first need to decide how you want to go about setting things up to suit your needs the best according to your personal use. If you are not going to see a second OS put on right away but will later you would still create the partitioning scheme as intended but see a temporary purpose assigned for the second OS's primary partition. You wouldn't put anything there but temp files to avoid clutter on the main storage volume until backed up onto external storage or removable media just to have access to additional drive space during the interim between now and the day the second OS goes on so it still has a practical purpose.

 

The reason I thought there should be four partitions is because Shawn says in the tutorial:

The 4 partitions are these below. It is critical that these 4 partitions remain in the exact order as they are
•Paritition 1 - Recovery
•Partition 2 - System - The EFI System partition that contains the NTLDR, HAL, Boot.txt, and other files that are needed to boot the system, such as drivers.
•Partition 3 - MSR - The Microsoft Reserved (MSR) partition that reserves space on each disk drive for subsequent use by operating system software.
•Partition 4 - Primary - Where Windows is to be installed to.

Maybe I am not doing an UEFI install as I thought I would be doing ....

If I am understanding you both, the best bet is to just use the SDD for the OS with minimal partitions and reformat the HDD as a Basic Disk with one to two Primary partitions for files, backups, images, etc.

Correct?

 

You will get four partitions if you use UEFI/GPT on a 64 bit system.
You get two partitions on a BIOS/MBR system, 32 or 64 bit.

 

I got the two partitions, but supposedly my laptop supports UEFI ..... Maybe there was something I was supposed to do that I did not.

HP dv6 6091nr
2nd Gen i7-2630QM 64-bit

I cannot say the exact mother board, but there is a BIOS and it supposedly supports UEFI

 

Supports UEFI is not the same as being in UEFI mode. Check BIOS setup.
As for GPT or MBR:

Code: You can use diskpart's detail volume for this info. Open a Elevated Command Prompt. Enter diskpart list disk sel disk # (# is the number of the disk you are interested in) list vol sel vol # (# is the number of the volume you are interested in) detail vol Looks like this: C:\WINDOWS\system32>diskpart Microsoft DiskPart version 6.3.9600 Copyright (C) 1999-2013 Microsoft Corporation. On computer: DESKTOP DISKPART> list disk Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt -------- ------------- ------- ------- --- --- Disk 0 Online 232 GB 0 B * Disk 1 Online 1863 GB 1024 KB * Disk 2 Online 1397 GB 1024 KB Disk 3 No Media 0 B 0 B DISKPART> sel disk 0 Disk 0 is now the selected disk. DISKPART> list vol Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info ---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- -------- Volume 0 K DVD-ROM 0 B No Media Volume 1 C Lenovo_C NTFS Partition 206 GB Healthy Boot Volume 2 WINRE_DRV NTFS Partition 1000 MB Healthy Hidden Volume 3 SYSTEM_DRV FAT32 Partition 260 MB Healthy System Volume 4 NTFS Partition 450 MB Healthy Hidden Volume 5 PBR_DRV NTFS Partition 24 GB Healthy Hidden Volume 6 D Lenovo_D NTFS Partition 732 GB Healthy Volume 7 E Lenovo_E NTFS Partition 732 GB Healthy Volume 8 F Lenovo_F NTFS Partition 398 GB Healthy Volume 9 G Lenovo_G NTFS Partition 698 GB Healthy Volume 10 H Lenovo_H NTFS Partition 698 GB Healthy Pagefile Volume 11 I Removable 0 B No Media DISKPART> sel vol 1 Volume 1 is the selected volume. DISKPART> detail vol Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt -------- ------------- ------- ------- --- --- * Disk 0 Online 232 GB 0 B * Read-only : No Hidden : No No Default Drive Letter: No Shadow Copy : No Offline : No BitLocker Encrypted : No Installable : Yes Volume Capacity : 206 GB Volume Free Space : 146 GB[/quote]

 

I don't have a UEFI system, but I think 2 of the 4 partitions are hidden, so you'd normally only see 2. Yes, avoid dynamic partitions and just use a single large partition for data on the HDD unless you have a peculiar situation.

 

Sure enough, it is not UEFI.





Is there some way I can make it UEFI?

Should I?

Advantages?

UPDATE: I think I will just stick with the setup I have. I think that I had originally made the HDD dynamic thinking that I was limited to 4 partitions for the system instead of per disk. No way I will need more than 4 Primary partitions per disk.

Thank you to everyone for your help!

 

BIOS/MBR is okay, works fine. I don't see any advantage to you converting to UEFI/GPT.

 

I've been running with four drives each seeing either the OS primary or data primary type all along while you will expect to see the OEM system reserved or recovery partitions there since originally Windows came preinstalled. As for the partitions you will plainly see while in the Disk Management where you will want to go later for assigning the preferred drive letter per volume.

Now for presinstalled Windows you would expect the manufacturer to have those small partitions in case of the need to recover the OS or to add/subject apps that came preinstalled or remain options for the version being upgraded over. Those generally don't take up much drive space since everything is compressed down is size to be compact. When not planning to go back to the previous version on the same drive at least you can dump those to free up more space.

The 10 installer on the other hand will set things up automatically seeing the Basic Primary type OS partition with an MBR by default even when replacing the upgraded Windows with a nice fresh install of 10. It makes real sense to see only one main OS primary on the sssd while you can create a few folders to store things or one main folder with severral subs! Even with 10 I plan a storage/backup folder for various things to keep like 3rd party updates for device drivers video, sound, WiFi or Lan depending on how you connect, and other miscellaneous things like 3rd party apps and OS tweaks that will eventually come out for 10. Every version since Legacy for desktops that is has always seen something along those lines! *Biggrin

That type of saves the need for plugging in removable media constantly for anything you would be using frequently. You can also store photos you take and upload, small video and mp3 files, wallpapers and themes if you get into customizing the appearance of things, etc. For the second being designated for storage only you the option of one large to two once being a place to stash full system image backups which on a laptop with a fresh install of everything should be about 35-50gb depending on how much goes on. A factory image made of a 32bit 7 Home Premium laptop which would likely just a little but not much smaller then the 10 Home edition clean install where you would expect the 30gb image of 7 to climb up no more then 33-35gb for 10 if so.(have to find out some time when getting to upgrade a 7 Home Premium desktop for someone or 8 Home on a laptop)

For the 64bit expect that installation to start off larger like 35-36gb for 10 and once apps are loaded on plan on a good 40-55gb once again depending on how much goes on which usually isn't as much on a laptop unless into a gaming model and OS tweaking and the whole ball of wax in that direction or simply just love to keep installing things?! *Cool The second partition for system images wouldn't have to take up half of the 1tb drive but stored in a 250-300gb partition where you can also stash some other important things preventing them from being lost on the larger first partition or on the ssd even. Here with a desktop I went with capacity on each drive using the second storage for images at first and then temp storage of those on the second OS drive until now where once again I have a two OS system. I'll be replacing the two storage drives mentioned earlier with a 2tb commercial heavy duty drive since I never set the drives to spin down after 20minute having the system running 24/7. Large constrast from what would be recommended for you there on a laptop where things need to be planned out to be more efficient. Nothing wrong with that! *Smile