Windows Wipe

[ItsFluffyMexican]

Hey all!

 

My computer had been running rather slow and I've noticed a lot of "ghost" Dara in my drives that I don't remember having. My computer doesn't have any important files on it right now and I'm considering wiping ALL MY DRIVES (including boot drive).

 

If I do this will I have to buy another windows key or no since most of the time the windows key is tied to the mobo?

 

I'd reinstall windows onto the same nvme once it's all wiped and what not but just wanna be safe before I've forward.

[Sant_HH]

You don't need to by a new license as it should detect your motherboard and automatically activate it

[ItsFluffyMexican]

Perfect that's what I was thinking it would do but wanted be on the safe bet before I completely wiped my 5 drives to start from scratch haha.

 

Thanks!

[GoodBytes]

Windows Setup may ask you for your product key, you'll have the option "I don't have one", selecting this option will skip the screen and ask you which edition of Windows you want to install. This is critical that you pick the right edition that you have. If you pick the wrong one, Windows won't activate, and you'll need to clean install again.

 

Once in Windows, and you have all drivers installed and Windows is updated, Windows should be able to pull your product key from Microsoft servers. Please note that if you are aren't using a Microsoft Linked account, your product key isn't stored with your account, it will go with a generated ID based on your hardware, so some hardware changes may throw it off and not be able to find it. So during the clean install process, don't change your hardware if you planned to (again, this only applies if you don't have a Microsoft linked account, if you do, no worries)

 

Please note, Windows Setup will install the boot partition on the first drive that the motherboard report to it. So if you have a mixture of NVMe drive and SATA drive, the motherboard may say to Windows Setup "First drive is on SATA0/1 port" instead of your NVMe drive. So Windows will be installed on the selected drive (NVMe) however, the boot partition will be on some other drive. If you don't know your motherboard perfectly, the easiest method is to simply unplus all extra drives before installing Windows, and plug them back once Windows is fully installed with everything (of course, turn off the system to do this)