[SOLVED] Hard Drive Wipe

[Coinbro]

Is it possible to just wipe Windows 10 off of my hard drive? I'm currently buying a new mobo and ssd so I was going to reinstall windows on that ssd for faster bootups. But I don't want to lose or transfer any of the data on my older internal SATA hard drive, so can I just remove windows 10 exclusively from it or can I leave it on and just use the ssd to boot the system?

 

[hotaru.hino]

If you don't have an external drive or enough space on the SSD to store the files you want to save off after installing Windows on it, then technically yes, but it'll just be a pain because of many layers of hidden system permissions in the OS that you'd have to try and muck with. You could also find a Linux distro with NTFS support, put that on a USB thumb drive, boot into that, and delete Windows from there since Linux doesn't care about NTFS permissions at that point.

Otherwise the easiest way to do this is to get an external drive, copy the files you want to save from the HDD, and then reformat the HDD.

 

[Math Geek]

how big is the drive? how much data do you want to save? how much free space is on the drive now??

depending on the answers to this, there may be a way to make it happen rather easily.

 

[Coinbro]

how big is the drive? how much data do you want to save? how much free space is on the drive now??

depending on the answers to this, there may be a way to make it happen rather easily.

The drive that I am going to purchase to install windows on is 2TB, while the drive I currently have is 1TB with 340GB of free space. I want save most of the data on that drive.

 

[Coinbro]

If you don't have an external drive or enough space on the SSD to store the files you want to save off after installing Windows on it, then technically yes, but it'll just be a pain because of many layers of hidden system permissions in the OS that you'd have to try and muck with. You could also find a Linux distro with NTFS support, put that on a USB thumb drive, boot into that, and delete Windows from there since Linux doesn't care about NTFS permissions at that point.

Otherwise the easiest way to do this is to get an external drive, copy the files you want to save from the HDD, and then reformat the HDD.

Would it be possible to just move and reformat the files I want on that drive onto my ssd once I have everything on my computer set up. Then I could just wipe the old hard drive and use it as extra space?

 

[Math Geek]

that would be the easiest way really. once the new drive is set up, then you'll have plenty of room to move the data to it and then format the old drive completely.

the other option is to move anything you want to save to a new folder. then you can delete everything else but that folder. follow this with deleting the smaller windows partitions to recover that space.

depends on where you ultimately want the data to end up. if you want it on the new drive, then moving it once the new drive is ready makes the most sense.

do note though, that when you install to the new drive you want any other drives disconnected first. you only want the new ssd installed until it is up and running with a fresh windows install. then and only then do you want to plug in the old drive and start moving data.

 

[Coinbro]

that would be the easiest way really. once the new drive is set up, then you'll have plenty of room to move the data to it and then format the old drive completely.

the other option is to move anything you want to save to a new folder. then you can delete everything else but that folder. follow this with deleting the smaller windows partitions to recover that space.

depends on where you ultimately want the data to end up. if you want it on the new drive, then moving it once the new drive is ready makes the most sense.

do note though, that when you install to the new drive you want any other drives disconnected first. you only want the new ssd installed until it is up and running with a fresh windows install. then and only then do you want to plug in the old drive and start moving data.

Alright sounds like a plan. I think I will just install the new ssd by itself with windows. Once everything is set up, I'll move everything I want to keep over and delete the rest.

 

[DSzymborski]

From what you say, it also sounds like you have important data without proper backups, which is highly troubling, and something to take care of long before you start worrying about reinstalling Windows. Or, really, anything else.

 

[Ralston18]

And I will add the suggestion that you use COPY and not MOVE to transfer the desired/required files.

Verify that the copied files are recoverable and readable before doing any deletions.