Windows 10: Clean Windows 10 Install & Disk Partitions

Hello

Two desktop computers each running Windows 10 Pro 64 bit.

I tried to copy an image of the source C: drive to the target C: drive and ran into issues and, I think, in the process messed up the source drive partition table.

So I tried to do a clean install of Windows 10 on the target C: drive. Was prompted to select where to install it and found the disk partitions somewhat confusing. There are some OEM partitions that I am not sure how to install them. Have a DVD for the motherboard of the target computer.

The target desktop has two 1TB SSD drives (system and data).

Attached is screen shot from disk management.

I would like to start the target C: drive from scratch.

Question: How to clean up and install the partitions on the system SSD drive including the essential OEM information and where to install a fresh copy of Windows 10?

No user data or programs are present on the target system SSD drive.

Very much appreciate information about what is going on in general.

:)

 

W7 Hard drive partition issue

to get rid of that 100 meg windows partition that setup creates for you on a new install on a blank hdd:

- press shift+f10 when on the partition management screen in setup <-- this opens a command prompt
- diskpart <-- start the windows command line partition management tool
- list disk <--- list the installed hdds in this computer for the next step
- select disk 0 <- might have to replace 0 with the number of the correct disk
- clean <-- this will erase all data on the disk you selected one step up- dont use the wrong disk!
- create partition primary <- creates a primary partition taking up all space on the drive, adjust the command if necessary
- exit, exit to exit diskpart and the command prompt
- click refresh in partition manager and select your newly created partition and install to that

 

Windows 10 clean install mess up partitions?

If I do a clean install of Windows 10, will it mess up the partitions I have on my 2TB drive?

 

Clean Install Windows 10 partition issue

Hello,

Thank you for writing to Microsoft Community Forums.

I appreciate the troubleshooting steps performed to resolve the issue. However, let’s try with the further troubleshooting steps and see if it works. Initially, I would suggest you to create a bootable media with a USB/Flash drive of capacity 8GB.
For better understanding, you may watch the video with the procedure from the article on
How to Clean Install Windows 10 on a PC Step-by-Step
Guide.

Set the boot priority to USB once after creating a bootable media using a USB and proceed with the Windows Installation. On the drive selection window, press Shift + F10 keys to open the Command Prompt. Then follow the steps listed
below:

• Type the following command in the Command Prompt window and press Enter:
  diskpart
  
• Once after executing the above command, type the following command to list the current drives and press Enter:
  list disk
  
• List disk will give you the list of drives, use the following command to select the drive and press Enter: select disk 0
  
• Type the following command to check if the disk is online: online disk
  (if the disk is not online)
  
• Type the following command to clean the drive and press Enter:
  clean
  
• To create a partition, type the following command and press Enter:
  create partition primary
  
• To select the partition that you created, type the following command and press Enter:
  select partition 1
  
• To set the partition active, type the following command and press Enter:
  active (if this is the boot partition)
  
• Type the following command to assign a drive letter and press Enter:
  assign letter(letter)
  

• After completing all this, close the command prompt screen and click on
  refresh button.
  
• Then you will only have one drive with “unallocated space”, just select the partition to start the installation.
  

Let us know how it goes and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Regards,

Mala S

Microsoft Community - Moderator