Windows 10: Setting up Backup on New HD, but don't want to reformat a partition

I haven't yet fully restored Outlook from a recovery. (I did restore it, but I have to recover it again.)
In attempting to set up a new backup, the drive has an unformatted primary partition. It may contain the recovery image I need, so I don't want to format it.
As a matter of fact, I don't want to do anything that might hurt my chances of a recovery at all.
I would assume that the .vhd has been protected from people like me.
I already created a new image... (Only.)

I'm also running an HD Tune error check, which may reveal the location of the 26 damaged sectors.

Suggestions would be welcome in setting up Macrium - it offers far more that I am used to with Backup & Restore.

I've had restore/recovery problems, so having a new HD offers one kind of peace.
I'm shutting it down - the backup - and waiting for some proper direction.

Thank you.

:)

 

Windows 10 Reset (clean OS install + disk clean) - "There was a problem resetting your PC. No changes were made"

Hi there

I don't think it's strictly correct that after a clean install the only files left are new files - yes, the old file address register is gone so you can't see the old files in Explorer, but the data still sits on the HD and can be accessed if someone with
a certain level of IT knowledge (and some software tools) wants to. This is what I was wanting to address with my original query.

Anyway, I followed the "before you sell or gift your device" link, but ended up with the same problem as I had at the very start so no resolution i.e. "There was a problem resetting your PC. No changes were made".

SInce I've spent too much time on this now, the only solution I came up with was to reformat the partition on my HD that does NOT have the Win 10 OS. I had never saved any personal or work files on the OS partition so leaving that with the new OS install
but not reformatted is low risk IMO.

If anyone has a better solution, then I'd love to hear about it!

 

I put in a new SSD, copied my old disk using Samsungs SW, and want to make my original disk a second disk.

Dennis,

Thank you. I was able to access the old HD and reformat the data partition. There are currently six partitions on the old drive but I can only reformat the data partition. How do I format the entire drive? It is a 2GB HD and I can only reformat the large
data partition (1.8 GB) so its not terribly important since I have plenty of space but I'd like to know. Thanks again.