Will upragrading to windows 10 erase my files on two Hard drives?

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YoshiBonifacio

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Jul 13, 2015
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I'm adding a ssd before July 29th for the OS, the only concern of mine is erasing the files on my Hard drive. What im planning to do is before the release (July 29th) I'm going to reinstall windows 8.1 on the SSD. Then attach the Hard drives like it was out of the box instead with files from windows 8.1. I'm guessing that i have to erase the disk manually or will windows just do it for me? Any other better suggestions would be nice to know :)
 
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I would back up any important files or documents to a separate location, perform a clean install of windows 8.1 as outlined at the following link, which when done properly will remove all prior partitions and installations including old boot records and recovery partitions, and then perform the upgrade to Windows 10. After that Windows 10 should be registered to your unique hardware id string and can be clean installed without a product key. If you are relying on the factory recovery partition for installation media, be sure to leave that partition intact, but if you have physical media, meaning a disk or USB ISO, just eliminate all partitions when you get to that step as outlined. I'd still document the product key used by Windows 10...

devriesj

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Feb 21, 2013
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If you upgrade using Windows Update you'll be fine. The upgrade will not touch the hard drives. It will only modify the necessary files on the SSD. In order to upgrade you to windows 10.

If you're going to ues an install disc be very careful to pick the SSD as your install location. Because you will have windows 8.1 installed be sure to select upgrade and not clean install. Check the partition options carefully it will only erase the hard drives if you tell it to.
 
I would back up any important files or documents to a separate location, perform a clean install of windows 8.1 as outlined at the following link, which when done properly will remove all prior partitions and installations including old boot records and recovery partitions, and then perform the upgrade to Windows 10. After that Windows 10 should be registered to your unique hardware id string and can be clean installed without a product key. If you are relying on the factory recovery partition for installation media, be sure to leave that partition intact, but if you have physical media, meaning a disk or USB ISO, just eliminate all partitions when you get to that step as outlined. I'd still document the product key used by Windows 10 just in case though.

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/2299-clean-install-windows-8-a.html
 
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