Deleting Windows without losing files

[Marcelvdongen]

Hi,

 

Earlier this year I build my first gaming pc and installed Windows 10 Pro on my SSD (Samsung 860 EVO).

Shortly after I bought an additional M.2 drive (Samsung 970 PRO) with the intention of moving windows to this slightly faster drive.

Unfortunately I never got around to doing so, until today.

 

I already did a clean install of Windows 10 Pro on the M.2 drive but I'm having trouble figuring out how to delete windows off of my old drive while making sure my files, settings and games won't stop working or delete with it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

Regards,

Marcel

[Princess Luna]

Usually you'd be told just to clone to the old drive into the new one, if you want to swap boot drive.

[Electronics Wizardy]

You don't really need to delete windows off the old drive, but you can delete the windows folder and the boot partitions.

[Stormseeker9]

10 minutes ago, Marcelvdongen said:

Hi,

 

Earlier this year I build my first gaming pc and installed Windows 10 Pro on my SSD (Samsung 860 EVO).

Shortly after I bought an additional M.2 drive (Samsung 970 PRO) with the intention of moving windows to this slightly faster drive.

Unfortunately I never got around to doing so, until today.

 

I already did a clean install of Windows 10 Pro on the M.2 drive but I'm having trouble figuring out how to delete windows off of my old drive while making sure my files, settings and games won't stop working or delete with it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

Regards,

Marcel

Whatever files you need, transfer them to your NVMe drive and then defrag your 860 and transfer files back. Not sure if this is possible for you regarding space but it would be the best way - no remmenents of windows left 

[.Apex.]

10 minutes ago, Marcelvdongen said:

Hi,

 

Earlier this year I build my first gaming pc and installed Windows 10 Pro on my SSD (Samsung 860 EVO).

Shortly after I bought an additional M.2 drive (Samsung 970 PRO) with the intention of moving windows to this slightly faster drive.

Unfortunately I never got around to doing so, until today.

 

I already did a clean install of Windows 10 Pro on the M.2 drive but I'm having trouble figuring out how to delete windows off of my old drive while making sure my files, settings and games won't stop working or delete with it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

Regards,

Marcel

It's kind of a difficult process, you have to do tons of things to get rid of windows and keep only the files you need, i suggest just moving all the files that you need to a different drive then formatting the 860 EVO and put the files back in, but make sure you get everything before you format.

[Eastman51]

Copy your data off the drive

Open admin cmd

run 'diskpart'

run 'list disk'

Figure out which disk is your old SSD

run 'sel disk #' (where '#' is the number of the drive in the list from the previous command)

run 'clean'

 

The clean command wipes all partitions and data (hence why you need to backup before hand). You have to do it this way because you can't clear the boot partition off the old drive from Disk Management, the only way to get rid of it is to run the clean command. You'd want to remove that boot partition so that you don't run into issues booting from your motherboard trying to load on OS that doesn't exist.

[.Apex.]

2 minutes ago, Eastman51 said:

Copy your data off the drive

Open admin cmd

run 'diskpart'

run 'list disk'

Figure out which disk is your old SSD

run 'sel disk #' (where '#' is the number of the drive in the list from the previous command)

run 'clean'

Oof.. he might mess it up and lose all his data, a GUI alternative would be better

[Eastman51]

Just now, _Syn_ said:

Oof.. he might mess it up and lose all his data, a GUI alternative would be better

You can open Disk Management to confirm the disk number. From my findings the numbering of disks in Disk Management and in diskpart are identical, so he should be able to avoid selecting the wrong drive. 

 

Of course, he still could lose data if he can't figure out where everything is stored. 

Typically, I copy the user folder because it contains every file attached to that user you could possibly imagine (for the most part). Games and apps aren't as big of a deal, since you can re-download them. Big games I'd copy over, but its probably mostly dependent on internet speed.

[.Apex.]

https://www.paragon-software.com/free/pm-express/#

[Eastman51]

1 minute ago, _Syn_ said:

https://www.paragon-software.com/free/pm-express/#

imo, diskpart and Disk Management are good enough on their own. There's not a need for third-party software, unless you absolutely hate command line and/or the built-in tools.

[.Apex.]

Just now, Eastman51 said:

You can open Disk Management to confirm the disk number. From my findings the numbering of disks in Disk Management and in diskpart are identical, so he should be able to avoid selecting the wrong drive. 

 

Of course, he still could lose data if he can't figure out where everything is stored. 

Typically, I copy the user folder because it contains every file attached to that user you could possibly imagine (for the most part). Games and apps aren't as big of a deal, since you can re-download them. Big games I'd copy over, but its probably mostly dependent on internet speed.

the numbers in Disk Management are identical but I think a CMD interface for someone like him might be overwhelming, he doesn't seem to be tech savvy but i could be wrong ofc.

[Eastman51]

2 minutes ago, _Syn_ said:

the numbers in Disk Management are identical but I think a CMD interface for someone like him might be overwhelming, he doesn't seem to be tech savvy but i could be wrong ofc.

Fair enough.

[Marcelvdongen]

Just now, Eastman51 said:

Copy your data off the drive

Open admin cmd

run 'diskpart'

run 'list disk'

Figure out which disk is your old SSD

run 'sel disk #' (where '#' is the number of the drive in the list from the previous command)

run 'clean'

 

The clean command wipes all partitions and data (hence why you need to backup before hand). You have to do it this way because you can't clear the boot partition off the old drive from Disk Management, the only way to get rid of it is to run the clean command. You'd want to remove that boot partition so that you don't run into issues booting from your motherboard trying to load on OS that doesn't exist.

I could do that, the drives are different sizes so figuring out which drive is which isn't that hard (Old=0 New=1)...

Only problem is that I'm 100GB short on my M.2 drive (that's why I went with a clean install rather than clone disk in the first place) so I'm contemplating if it is worth the hassle haha

 

If I decide not to change boot drives, should I do to my 'new' disk what you mentioned above?

(Since reformatting won't do the trick, right?)

 

Thanks to all for the quick replies btw, much appreciated!

[Eastman51]

2 minutes ago, Marcelvdongen said:

I could do that, the drives are different sizes so figuring out which drive is which isn't that hard (Old=0 New=1)...

Only problem is that I'm 100GB short on my M.2 drive (that's why I went with a clean install rather than clone disk in the first place) so I'm contemplating if it is worth the hassle haha

 

If I decide not to change boot drives, should I do to my 'new' disk what you mentioned above?

(Since reformatting won't do the trick, right?)

 

Thanks to all for the quick replies btw, much appreciated!

Yes, you would have to clean the new drive if you decide to stick with the old one (since it has a boot partition now). If you have an external drive or an HDD for extra storage, you could backup your data there; then you can sort it and move it over to your new drive as needed.