Motherboard upgrade with old partitioned 3TB HDD

[MrAffinitys]

Okay so this is a weird issue I have.

I am getting a new motherboard to accommodate a new processor. I am currently aware that when you get a new motherboard, you will need to do a fresh install of windows.

I currently have a 3TB hard drive partitioned into one 2TB and one 1TB. The reason for this is because I set the drive up with MRB instead of GPT as I didn't know what I was doing at the time. This meant windows could only read 2TB. So I followed a tutorial on the Seagate website and then partitioned it so I would be able to use the extra 1TB. Because of this I used the 1TB partition to store all of my films, TV shows etc.

Now my question is that when I come to do the fresh install on a new motherboard, will the partitions I made still be present?

At this point I have gathered around 350GB of content and it would be a real pain to have to gather all that on a fresh install. I don't really have any means of backing up this amount of data, so I need to know if I will need to buy an external HDD to back up what is on the partition.

 

[norsestar]

Unless you repartition, the existing partitions should be preserved. As long as you reinstall into the 2TB partition, the 1TB should be untouched.

That said, you really should have a backup if you care about losing your data. Buying an external and copying your data onto that before the reinstall would be a good solution. But you might also consider buying a new internal drive and an external enclosure then installing your existing drive in the enclosure and the new drive in the PC. The cost would be similar, you'd have your backup, and you could partition the new drive however you like without having to worry about it.