Re-installing windows on a partition

[savedan]

For reasons that I talked about in the post below (dont think theyre relevant to the question but stll) my windows 10 is corrupted and nothing I try to fix it seems to work. I started considering re-installing windows and the potential loss of data, when it hit me. My windows installation is on a sseparate partition, and when I used the windows installation tool I got on a flash I found the partition branded "system reserved" on the list. I have some concerns however. Is the data on other drives and on the other partition of the drive with the corrupted windows on it safe? When in windows setup Im prompted with 2 options: Option 1: Upgrade; install windows and keep files, settings and applications, and option 2: Custom; install windows only. The installer wont let me use option 1, claiming that it wont work if theres another drive with windows on it in the system. Option 2 however sounds a bit scarier and Im unsure how much its going to overwrite and what data will still be unusable. In addition it gave me an error that I dont really understand (Screenshots below of the error and of the message I get if i try using option 1)

Thanks for all the help!

 

[tkitch]

Firstly:  Making multiple threads for the same subject is a no-no on here.

 

Then a question:

Do you know what drive windows is currently installed on, and is it an SSD or a HDD?

[savedan]

3 minutes ago, tkitch said:

Firstly:  Making multiple threads for the same subject is a no-no on here.

 

Then a question:

Do you know what drive windows is currently installed on, and is it an SSD or a HDD?

My bad, should I delete one of them?

 

Yes its a M.2 ssd, pretty new one as well.

[tkitch]

1 minute ago, savedan said:

My bad, should I delete one of them?

 

Yes its a M.2 ssd, pretty new one as well.

What drive is it on, in that list?

 

Also, can you post a full list of partitions / drives as shown in the windows installer?  

[savedan]

 

 

.

[savedan]

24 minutes ago, tkitch said:

What drive is it on, in that list?

 

Also, can you post a full list of partitions / drives as shown in the windows installer?  

Its drive 3, either partition 1 or partition 3, I dont remember if "system reserved" meant that it had windows on it or if it was just extra space for it to operate.

[tkitch]

7 minutes ago, savedan said:

Its drive 3, either partition 1 or partition 3, I dont remember if "system reserved" meant that it had windows on it or if it was just extra space for it to operate.

 

Whelp, it's neither Partition 1 or Partiton3.  They're both too small for windows.  It's guaranteed Partition2.

 

So, how much stuff on that partition do you need to try to save?  Because that's gonna be the hard part.  

[savedan]

4 minutes ago, tkitch said:

Whelp, it's neither Partition 1 or Partiton3.  They're both too small for windows.  It's guaranteed Partition2.

 

So, how much stuff on that partition do you need to try to save?  Because that's gonna be the hard part.  

I looked into it, and i could swear its on partition 3, althoigh yea according to google windows takes up a lot more space.

To answer the question, a lot. There is a second drive, namely drive 2, that only has a bunch of games on it, and no data i would have to recover. Would it be possible to install windows onto that drive and boot off of it instead?

[tkitch]

3 minutes ago, savedan said:

I looked into it, and i could swear its on partition 3, althoigh yea according to google windows takes up a lot more space.

To answer the question, a lot. There is a second drive, namely drive 2, that only has a bunch of games on it, and no data i would have to recover. Would it be possible to install windows onto that drive and boot off of it instead?

So short answer yes:

Longer answer:

You'll want to unplug and/or remove any drive that isn't the one you want to install windows onto.

 

Then boot off the windows USB with just that one drive installed.

Do a Custom Windows installation

Delete all the partitions on that drive when given the option.

Click "Next"  (do not create any partitions, the installer will do that automatically.

 

After windows is installd and working, you can go back and plug in other drives to get them back.  

[savedan]

41 minutes ago, tkitch said:

So short answer yes:

Longer answer:

You'll want to unplug and/or remove any drive that isn't the one you want to install windows onto.

 

Then boot off the windows USB with just that one drive installed.

Do a Custom Windows installation

Delete all the partitions on that drive when given the option.

Click "Next"  (do not create any partitions, the installer will do that automatically.

 

After windows is installd and working, you can go back and plug in other drives to get them back.  

Removed all the deives, hit the foemat button in the installer, but it didnt format properly. The data was removed, the drive shows up empty, but its still MBR and not GPT.

 

Edit: My bad figured out what you meant.

[savedan]

1 hour ago, tkitch said:

So short answer yes:

Longer answer:

You'll want to unplug and/or remove any drive that isn't the one you want to install windows onto.

 

Then boot off the windows USB with just that one drive installed.

Do a Custom Windows installation

Delete all the partitions on that drive when given the option.

Click "Next"  (do not create any partitions, the installer will do that automatically.

 

After windows is installd and working, you can go back and plug in other drives to get them back.  

It didnt work. Or rather it did until it didnt. I installed windows on the drive. It worked. I even restarted ghe pc to make sure. A perfect fresh windows install. I turn it off, pop the other drives back in. Im back at square one. I made sure to boot from the new windoes drive. What do I do?

[tkitch]

unplug the old drive and make sure it boots off the new install, still.

 

[savedan]

4 minutes ago, tkitch said:

unplug the old drive and make sure it boots off the new install, still.

 

Figured it out, the drive was listed twice for some reason, thanks a lot, youve been a massive help. One last question: since I got into this mess by doing a clean boot, and it all started with me disabling services in the system configuration screen, would it be possible for me to somehow to change the settings and enable the services back, since I think thats what caused my system not to work in the first place.

[tkitch]

if you can boot off the old drive in safe mode or something, maybe?  But I wouldn't hold my breath on it.