Question What to do with old OS on old drive when installing to new MB?

[holmesc]

Going to be upgrading my cpu (from an intel to amd) and motherboard pretty soon and wanted to ask about the windows 10 OS on my current SSD drive.
To my understanding folks say when you switch to a new motherboard you have to reinstall the OS that is on your SSD/HHD drive, thus erasing the stored files in the process.

I was wondering, since the new MB also has a m.2 drive slot I was thinking of getting a m.2 drive and putting a new OS on there instead, not only will it be faster then my current SSD I was hoping to skip the process of reinstalling and porting all my back up data/files back into it when i'm finished.
However i've never attempted this and am wondering how the process would go. Even when I install a fresh OS on the new M.2 drive, I will still have the old OS on the old SSD drive, do I just uninstall it via usb windows installation via bios? If so does this process erase my files inside anyway?

I will create important back ups incase but I just want to ask what the correct procedure would go.

 

[USAFRet]

There is no "uninstall" of the OS on the old drive.

Copy what you want from it, and DELETE all existing partitions.


For the install on a new drive, this:

How To - Windows 10 clean install tutorial

If you are looking for the Windows 11 Clean install tutorial, you can find that here: Windows 11 Clean install tutorial (Click here) Otherwise, welcome to the Windows 10 Clean install tutorial This tutorial is intended to help you, step by step, to perform a clean install of Windows...

forums.tomshardware.com

 

[holmesc]

There is no "uninstall" of the OS on the old drive.

Copy what you want from it, and DELETE all existing partitions.


For the install on a new drive, this:

How To - Windows 10 clean install tutorial

If you are looking for the Windows 11 Clean install tutorial, you can find that here: Windows 11 Clean install tutorial (Click here) Otherwise, welcome to the Windows 10 Clean install tutorial This tutorial is intended to help you, step by step, to perform a clean install of Windows...

forums.tomshardware.com

So by delete you mean reformat the drive?

 

[USAFRet]

So by delete you mean reformat the drive?

In Disk Management, delete all partitions.

Or the commandline function diskpart, and the clean command.

If you just look in File Explorer and 'format', you will leave behind the original boot partition.
You do not want that still in there.

 

[holmesc]

In Disk Management, delete all partitions.

Or the commandline function diskpart, and the clean command.

If you just look in File Explorer and 'format', you will leave behind the original boot partition.
You do not want that still in there.

What's wrong with a method like this?

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XleoAGUu3Ro

 

[Lafong]

Is there ANYTHING on the old drive that you want to keep that you do NOT have backed up to some other drive?

To put it another way:

What would be your motivation to NOT wipe the old drive clean?

 

[geofelt]

When you reinstall windows, do not have any other drive connected.

After, you can reconnect the old C drive and format it.

 

[USAFRet]

What's wrong with a method like this?

Thats a rather silly and ineffective way of removing the Windows install from the old drive.

You want ALL of it gone.
All partitions.


EDIT:
And whoever made that 'video' needs to be laughed at.

 

[holmesc]

Thats a rather silly and ineffective way of removing the Windows install from the old drive.

You want ALL of it gone.
All partitions.


EDIT:
And whoever made that 'video' needs to be laughed at.

Thanks for the feedback, i'm about to do it this weekend.
I've decided to use a m.2 drive for the new OS and use the existing SSD boot drive as extra storage space.

Will I have to delete all partitions on the current SSD boot before or after installing windows on the m.2?
As in is it advised to plug in and wipe the SSD while using the new OS or should I be wiping it before installing windows on the m.2 and plugging the old SSD in?

If I have to do it before that, i'm guessing I have to do it via bios (although unsure how) or do it while i'm actively using it (i'm guessing the computer shuts down since it wipes the SSD while in use).

(Also is deleting partitions basically just formatting?)

 

[USAFRet]

Thanks for the feedback, i'm about to do it this weekend.
I've decided to use a m.2 drive for the new OS and use the existing SSD boot drive as extra storage space.

Will I have to delete all partitions on the current SSD boot before or after installing windows on the m.2?
As in is it advised to plug in and wipe the SSD while using the new OS or should I be wiping it before even plugging it in?

If I have to do it before that, i'm guessing I have to do it via bios (although unsure how) or do it while i'm actively using it (i'm guessing the computer shuts down since it wipes the SSD while in use).

You can't wipe the current OS drive while it is still running.

Install the OS on whatever NEW drie. With only that one drive connected.

Later, reconnect the old OS drive.
Disk Management, and DELETE all existing partitions.

Or, commandline diskpart, and the /clean command.

 

[holmesc]

You can't wipe the current OS drive while it is still running.

Install the OS on whatever NEW drie. With only that one drive connected.

Later, reconnect the old OS drive.
Disk Management, and DELETE all existing partitions.

Or, commandline diskpart, and the /clean command.

Will do!
Thanks again for the help.