Question Is there a way to repartition windows boot drive after 2 years of usage?

[Waffle_McQuack]

Like the title says
I want to separate my windows installation from the rest of my files like installed apps, documents, images etc
At the time when I built the pc I wasn't really aware of the practice of reinstalling the OS every once in a while so I just ran with it
I'd of course want this to be as painless as possible, I could probably install windows on a new drive and move files one by one but I don't even know which folders to look into so I don't lose data

Currently the C drive has 3 partitions total

• 100MB EFI
• 728MB Recovery
• 930GB useable (windows installation and all the rest)

And I'd want to ideally go from that to something like

• 100MB EFI
• 728MB Recovery
• 30GB Windows installation (using 30 as a placeholder, idk how much it needs off the top of my head)
• 900GB useable

Now, since I plan on going from a Ryzen 7600X to a 9950X3D I want a fresh windows install to avoid compatibility issues like the ones Jayztwocents mentioned in a past video of his where he was showing a solution to the core parking issue the double CCD X3D cpus were having on a non-x3d installation
Not to mention eventual future OS reinstalls for whatever reason it may be
And I want to do it without losing everything, hence the idea of separating Windows after the fact with a repartitioning if possible

With that said, if it can be done to begin with, would I then have issues with apps not finding their installation files since I'm assuming for example steam.exe would go from a C: path to a D: ?
Or would the pc sort that out by itself?
Only ever partitioned fresh drives where I didn't have to worry about such details

 

[rgd1101]

most app need to reinstall when you reinstall windows.
only your data can be store separately

 

[USAFRet]

I want to separate my windows installation from the rest of my files like installed apps, documents, images etc

Why?
And no.

You can't split off the applications from the OS.
Documents, etc, maybe.

But....there are anecdotal references to reduced performance when splitting an SSD into major partition.
The small unseen hardware cache ends up also split. Hence, each partition ends up with worse performance.


And from your list of partition sizes..."30GB for Windows" is NOT in any way a good thing.

You have a 1TB drive.
Leave it as is.

 

[Waffle_McQuack]

Why?
And no.

You can't split off the applications from the OS.
Documents, etc, maybe.

But....there are anecdotal references to reduced performance when splitting an SSD into major partition.
The small unseen hardware cache ends up also split. Hence, each partition ends up with worse performance.


And from your list of partition sizes..."30GB for Windows" is NOT in any way a good thing.

You have a 1TB drive.
Leave it as is.

Like I mentioned the 30GB is just a number i threw out to round the rest to 900, it's not the size it will be if this can be done

The reason for separating windows is to be able to conduct fresh installations now and in the future without touching the rest of the data in case there's any major issues with the OS
And yeah, I do realize that buying a smaller ssd for windows alone and another one for the rest of the files would have been better but can't tell that to past me now sadly

Also, by separating the apps I mean something along the lines of installing any given app (steam if we use the original example) on drive D instead of the default C during the installation wizard
But in this case I was wondering if I can move an already installed one

Edit:
Obviously if a fresh install can be done without losing data then that is an option as well but from what I've seen online the installer for windows wipes the drives it works on which led me to the repartitioning idea

 

[USAFRet]

Like I mentioned the 30GB is just a number i threw out to round the rest to 900, it's not the size it will be if this can be done

The reason for separating windows is to be able to conduct fresh installations now and in the future without touching the rest of the data in case there's any major issues with the OS
And yeah, I do realize that buying a smaller ssd for windows alone and another one for the rest of the files would have been better but can't tell that to past me now sadly

Also, by separating the apps I mean something along the lines of installing any given app (steam if we use the original example) on drive D instead of the default C during the installation wizard
But in this case I was wondering if I can move an already installed one

Edit:
Obviously if a fresh install can be done without losing data then that is an option as well but from what I've seen online the installer for windows wipes the drives it works on which led me to the repartitioning idea

A minimum size I'd recommend for the OS partition is 250GB.

Then again, I would not split it off at all.


Regarding data security for potential future OS installs...this is specifically what a good backup routine is for.

 

[JayGau]

I don't understand. All Jaytwocents did to fix the problem was to use Revo Uninstaller to uninstall the AMD chipset drivers and delete any remnant of previous drivers (registry and files), and then reinstall the driver. It's something that should be done every time you change the CPU and is pretty much what a Windows fresh install would do.

You are going through this whole time consuming process just to not have to use Revo Uninstaller?

Every other solution in his video had nothing to do with a fresh install (like Windows power plan or BIOS settings) and are things you gonna need to check anyways even after a fresh install.

People who say you need a regular fresh install don't have anything else than Chrome and Steam installed on their C drive so for them it's not a big deal, but for plenty of people it is a huge deal. If your computer is working well there's absolutely no need to do that and is just a huge waste of time. Reinstalling Windows is by far the most recommended solution on forums like this one for pretty much any problems and most of the time a simple alternative solution would have worked (like the one in the Jaytwocents video). It's like going to the mechanic and the guy says he needs to replace the whole engine because there's an oil leak.

 

[USAFRet]

But in this case I was wondering if I can move an already installed one

In most cases, no.

 

[Waffle_McQuack]

I don't understand. All Jaytwocents did to fix the problem was to use Revo Uninstaller to uninstall the AMD chipset drivers and delete any remnant of previous drivers (registry and files), and then reinstall the driver. It's something that should be done every time you change the CPU and is pretty much what a Windows fresh install would do.

You are going through this whole time consuming process just to not have to use Revo Uninstaller?

Every other solution in his video had nothing to do with a fresh install (like Windows power plan or BIOS settings) and are things you gonna need to check anyways even after a fresh install.

People who say you need a regular fresh install don't have anything else than Chrome and Steam installed on their C drive so for them it's not a big deal, but for plenty of people it is a huge deal. If your computer is working well there's absolutely no need to do that and is just a huge waste of time. Reinstalling Windows is by far the most recommended solution on forums like this one for pretty much any problems and most of the time a simple alternative solution would have worked (like the one in the Jaytwocents video). It's like going to the mechanic and the guy says he needs to replace the whole engine because there's an oil leak.

It's near the end, when he talks about removing with revo and reinstalling the chipset driver

He mentions how the system in the video "will perform slower than the other system that has only ever seen x3d" and that there will be a bigger uplift in performance in a clean os rather than an already used one
Although his bench does also go through more cpus in a week than my system will ever go in its lifetime so that might be a factor as well for him

 

[Math Geek]

Easiest way is to get a second drive (internal or external) and back up all your data and steam games, deleting as you go. Then when only what you want us left, go through changing partition sizes. Essentially just shrinking c drive and creating d drive. Then move the data from your backup to the new d drive.

I will caution you about trying to move the official document/library folders. It's a huge buggy pain. Just create some new folders on the d drive and save to it as you go. And just pretend those official folders don't exist.

You can't move other programs this way. They would need a reinstall to the new d drive location to get all the references n such correct

 

[JayGau]

It's near the end, when he talks about removing with revo and reinstalling the chipset driver

He mentions how the system in the video "will perform slower than the other system that has only ever seen x3d" and that there will be a bigger uplift in performance in a clean os rather than an already used one
Although his bench does also go through more cpus in a week than my system will ever go in its lifetime so that might be a factor as well for him

Oh yeah I missed that part. But there are so many other things that could explain the "slightly" lower performance he mentioned. Could be placebo effect: he was saying it by looking at the numbers and was like "at that point our other system was going higher". Yeah right, I don't trust people's memory that much. Could also be that he had PBO enabled on the other pc and not this one. Expo not enabled. Different GPU (did he have a 4090 in both PCs). Also, one PC could be bloated with apps running in background and not the other. Also, if he used the PC for intel CPUs too that could do a mess. But only AMD CPUs I doubt it would make a significant difference.