New motherboard, CPU and Windows 7: How to install?

[JBourke]

Hi guys, I just got a new asus Z87=pro motherboard, Haswell CPU, and a new copy of windows 7.

I want to install this on my old hard drive, and I want to make sure I install it right. What is the best way to do this? Should I boot from the asus motherboard disk first or the new copy of windows 7? I'm looking to do a clean reformat...

Thanks!

 

[Tradesman1]

Boot from the Win 7 Disk and do the install, have it format the drive to NTFS format, after the install, go to the mobo makers site and get the latest BIOS and drivers, (some on your DVD may well be already outdated by now), once that's done can start the never ending Windows updates

 

[JBourke]

I'm seeing that the Windows CD is showing me Disk 0 Partition 1 (100mb, 86 mb free) as a system partition and a Partition 2 as a 465.7 GB partition with 465.6 GB free as a Primary partition. Should I delete these before installing this new Windows OEM or is just formating them sufficient? I want a clean wipe of the hard drive so any old drivers don't conflict with my new hardware.

 

[Tradesman1]

Delete the partitions and make a single one then format

 

[JBourke]

So I reformatted the hard drive and installed my new version of windows. Everything seems to be going smoothly except one thing is really puzzling me.

I re-downloaded steam and skyrim and I was under the impression reformatting would completely erase all my data. When I went to play Skyrim I was able to jump into my old game save. Did I do something wrong or are these saved on your steam account itself?

 

[Tradesman1]

Probably saved on your steam account, much the same as your email is stored out on the web