Question Installing Windows 10 on New M.2

[Zallman125]

So I have 3 existing hard drives on my PC at the moment and I just installed a new M.2 drive. I have transferred over any important video's pictures and documents onto an external hard drive and now I want to delete/reformat/wipe everything off my 3 hard drives and start fresh with my new M.2 (with windows on it) and 1 SSD I had originally I'm getting rid of the other 2 drives and giving them to a family member for their PC. I Bought and I'm using Windows 10 I purchased from best buy, came with a USB stick with windows installer setup on it and a key code as well. My question is Do I or can I delete and format all my drives now/first and then just stick the USB from windows and boot off that and install windows on the m.2 or can I stick the USB in boot off that and download windows on the M.2 drive first ? Cause then windows would be installed on 2 different drives does that matter? In what order or how would you go along doing all this? Also want to mention I did not upgrade to windows 11 either even though my computer says its compatible and ready for the new windows 11 but I haven't done it. Should I upgrade to 11 first? before reinstalling onto the new M.2? I feel like the USB stick that came with windows will not work or something happening with my luck ha! Some help or advice would be great! Not worried about backing anything up all I do is play games on My pc so nothing important is on any hard drive or on the computer itself.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Btw do you need this page file?

Yes. It's integral part of virtual memory subsystem.

can you delete it?

Current active pagefile can not be deleted.

is it necessary to have on a drive?

Yes. It is necessary.

if I delete everything and install windows on my new M.2 drive will it create a new page file on it?

Yes.

 

[Zallman125]

Yes. It's integral part of virtual memory subsystem.

Current active pagefile can not be deleted.

Yes. It is necessary.

Yes.

thank you man!

 

[Zallman125]

Yes, Windows needs a pagefile.

Install your OS on this new drive, and leave the pagefle settings alone.

thank you for the help!

 

[Zallman125]

Alright boys first problem! I unplugged all my drives and booted from the usb flash drive went through a few steps and I’m here where it wants me to pick a drive to install windows and it says “windows cannot be installed to this disk the selected disk is of GPT partition style”

 

[Zallman125]

Okay well I figured out how to get past that part by shift f10 and cleaning the disk in the command menu and everything goes through and everything installs but when it’s all said and done and I’m on my desktop it looks like my windows and PC is from the 50s hahaha I had no window set up prompt to set up internet mouse keyboard my region nothing my screen is all blurry like it’s on a different resolution like I’m using a old school brick monitor am I missing something here??

 

[USAFRet]

Okay well I figured out how to get past that part by shift f10 and cleaning the disk in the command menu and everything goes through and everything installs but when it’s all said and done and I’m on my desktop it looks like my windows and PC is from the 50s hahaha I had no window set up prompt to set up internet mouse keyboard my region nothing my screen is all blurry like it’s on a different resolution like I’m using a old school brick monitor am I missing something here??

Where did your Windows install USB come from?
How did you create this?

 

[Zallman125]

its a USB stick that came with windows 10 Home i bought from best buy for like 100 sum bucks but it was like 7 years ago lmao is that why??

 

[USAFRet]

its a USB stick that came with windows 10 Home i bought from best buy for like 100 sum bucks but it was like 7 years ago lmao is that why??

Yes, probably.

It would have been better to create a brand new USB, which contains the current level of WIn 10.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

 

[Zallman125]

ill try that im downloading the windows setup tool thing now on a fresh empty USB flash drive. How come i got the error for the GPT partition ? does the shiftf10 command and cleaning that disk do anything? i had to clean the disk and also type in the command to convert it to GPT idk if im messing <Mod Edit> up but im deff sweating over here hahahaha

 

[Zallman125]

it deff worked though and it allowed me to download my 10 year old windows 10 on it without any errors or warnings but sheeeeeshh

 

[Zallman125]

wanted to give you guys an update and everything went great! fresh windows is installed all my drives are clean fresh new PC thanks for all the help fellas!