Question Which formatting utility and method?

[eco_bach]

Doing a complete reformat of my drive before I upgrade to Windows 11.
Does it matter which method or utility I use or are they all the same?

 

[USAFRet]

Doing a complete reformat of my drive before I upgrade to Windows 11.
Does it matter which method or utility I use or are they all the same?

Upgrade to Win 11 how?

In place upgrade, or full wipe and reinstall?

For the reinstall, no need for anything but the Windows install routine.
When it asks where, DELETE all existing partitions and proceed on. Nothing special needed.

 

[eco_bach]

Upgrade to Win 11 how?

In place upgrade, or full wipe and reinstall?

For the reinstall, no need for anything but the Windows install routine.
When it asks where, DELETE all existing partitions and proceed on. Nothing special needed.

Thanks.
Can I be sure that any hidden partitions will be found and erased as well?
Just some concern that my BIOS may have been compromised.

 

[USAFRet]

Thanks.
Can I be sure that any hidden partitions will be found and erased as well?
Just some concern that my BIOS may have been compromised.

The BIOS exists on the motherboard.
Partitions on the drive are not associated with the BIOS in any way.

This is for WIn 10, but almost completely the same install:

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

Section II, Step 6 & 7 speak to deleting ALL existing partitions on the drive.


What leads you to think your BIOS is compromised?

Question - How to tell if the BIOS has been compromised ?

Maybe just being paranoid but.. A few days back made some simple edits in my BIOS, switching BUS lanes. But I seem to recall seeing something a little odd under history, last changes? The problem is I didn't take a photo and don't recall exactly where. There were just a couple entries in a table...

forums.tomshardware.com

 

[eco_bach]

The BIOS exists on the motherboard.
Partitions on the drive are not associated with the BIOS in any way.

This is for WIn 10, but almost completely the same install:

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

Section II, Step 6 & 7 speak to deleting ALL existing partitions on the drive.


What leads you to think your BIOS is compromised?

Question - How to tell if the BIOS has been compromised ?

Maybe just being paranoid but.. A few days back made some simple edits in my BIOS, switching BUS lanes. But I seem to recall seeing something a little odd under history, last changes? The problem is I didn't take a photo and don't recall exactly where. There were just a couple entries in a table...

forums.tomshardware.com

Nothing specific and probably just paranoid but a week or so ago made some minor changes and recall seeing something a bit odd, some cryllic characters and to the right RAID.
Problem is I didn’t take a screen grab and don’t know exactly where I saw this. Maybe Last Changes but nothing there now except for my edits.
Do you know if there is a log file somewhere with a history of all BIOS edits?

 

[USAFRet]

Nothing specific and probably just paranoid but a week or so ago made some minor changes and recall seeing something a bit odd, some cryllic characters and to the right RAID.
Problem is I didn’t take a screen grab and don’t know exactly where I saw this. Maybe Last Changes but nothing there now except for my edits.
Do you know if there is a log file somewhere with a history of all BIOS edits?

I do not know of any long term history storage or log.