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Formatting an NVMe drive with a previous Windows installation on it, for a clean install of Windows?

atxcyclist

Apparently DBAN won't work for this, my motherboard has to be in CSM mode to launch it so I cannot see my NVMe drive. Samsung tools won't work because it's my boot drive. Windows USB created install media just does a quick format that I cannot guarantee will leave me a clean slate to work with. How does one do this on a boot NVMe drive?

My Current Setup:

AMD Ryzen 5900X

Kingston HyperX Fury 3200mhz 2x16GB

MSI B450 Gaming Plus

Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo

EVGA RTX 3060 Ti XC

Samsung 970 EVO Plus 2TB

WD 5400RPM 2TB

EVGA G3 750W

Corsair Carbide 300R

Arctic Fans 140mm x4 120mm x 1

 

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^

If you really want to i guess you could boot into a live Linux distro and format from there.

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When you are choosing where to install the OS just remove all the partitions and format like said before. You CAN do this from Windows but you need to use diskpart and tinker a bit.

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18 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Just format with the windows installer, no need for any other programs than the installer

 

Well, I've gone ahead and done this. Always feel better doing a full format on a drive for a fresh install, but then again I'm probably just stuck in the old ways. I still remember having to manually give a park command to my hard drive before moving a computer, so things have changed.

My Current Setup:

AMD Ryzen 5900X

Kingston HyperX Fury 3200mhz 2x16GB

MSI B450 Gaming Plus

Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo

EVGA RTX 3060 Ti XC

Samsung 970 EVO Plus 2TB

WD 5400RPM 2TB

EVGA G3 750W

Corsair Carbide 300R

Arctic Fans 140mm x4 120mm x 1

 

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Just now, atxcyclist said:

Well, I've gone ahead and done this. Always feel better doing a full format on a drive for a fresh install, but then again I'm probably just stuck in the old ways. I still remember having to manually give a park command to my hard drive before moving a computer, so things have changed.

That is always best. A clean fresh OS install. One of the good things in life lol.

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41 minutes ago, atxcyclist said:

Well, I've gone ahead and done this. Always feel better doing a full format on a drive for a fresh install, but then again I'm probably just stuck in the old ways. I still remember having to manually give a park command to my hard drive before moving a computer, so things have changed.

Formatting in the installer will do the exact same thing as those programs. It resets the disk to a clean state so there are no remants of the previous install.

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not quite. 
If you really want to fresh install, and the best for the SSD, you do a secure erase (the only solution that deletes all data on the whole SSD).
It's better for the SSD, then just formatting, bring speeds back if it was working in no TRIM, or GC environment.

But for normal use, formatting it from windows install should do the job.

Ps. DBAN would actually be very bad for the SSD. 

   
 
 
 
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