Factory reset worth?

[CandleJakk]

Hey all, PC is running slow due to me having a tonne of stuff on it (built PC May 2016 ish, now have like 1.5tb filled on my 2tb hdd, yikes). I don't have any malware (at least... I don't think I do), I just have a lot of stuff in general. I'm going to buy a small SSD on my next paycheck probably to transfer Windows to (how hard is it to do that, btw?). So my question is, is starting afresh worth it? I kind of want to get rid of all of the junk on my PC, but don't know where to start. I initially thought it was mostly games, so I uninstalled a lot of the Steam games I wasn't playing, but that was only like 200GB. Before someone recommends it, I've used CCleaner, and whilst it was helpful, it did not quite do the trick for me. So anyway, do you think I should wipe my HDD (if so, how should I go about doing it? I've heard bad things about just straight up factory resetting, can't remember what it was though), and if not, what are the alternative options?

 

Thanks all!

 

(i'm aware this post is not very concise and is kind of a messy read, sorry!!)

[Blasteque]

1 minute ago, CandleJakk said:

Hey all, PC is running slow due to me having a tonne of stuff on it (built PC May 2016 ish, now have like 1.5tb filled on my 2tb hdd, yikes). I don't have any malware (at least... I don't think I do), I just have a lot of stuff in general. I'm going to buy a small SSD on my next paycheck probably to transfer Windows to (how hard is it to do that, btw?). So my question is, is starting afresh worth it? I kind of want to get rid of all of the junk on my PC, but don't know where to start. I initially thought it was mostly games, so I uninstalled a lot of the Steam games I wasn't playing, but that was only like 200GB. Before someone recommends it, I've used CCleaner, and whilst it was helpful, it did not quite do the trick for me. So anyway, do you think I should wipe my HDD (if so, how should I go about doing it? I've heard bad things about just straight up factory resetting, can't remember what it was though), and if not, what are the alternative options?

 

Thanks all!

 

(i'm aware this post is not very concise and is kind of a messy read, sorry!!)

Go with a fresh install of windows on the new SSD; it will run much better.

[userzero]

Bang for buck upgrade? SSD. FRESH install of Windows.

[PoPPinjoker0207`]

I had issues once too.. i reinstalled windows through the tool.. f i x e d. I can only imagine that this would be even better for you since youre getting an ssd, faster memory and all. If you dont care about whats on the hard drive, do a factory reset

[CandleJakk]

1 minute ago, Blasteque said:

Go with a fresh install of windows on the new SSD; it will run much better.

 

Just now, userzero said:

Bang for buck upgrade? SSD. FRESH install of Windows.

If I do this, do I need to buy another key? I bought a key from one of the grey market places when building my PC to keep costs down (sorry if that's frowned upon).

[Guest]

Before wiping you hdd, something out of that 1.5tb must be valuable right? So back that up before.

[Guest]

Just now, CandleJakk said:

 

If I do this, do I need to buy another key? I bought a key from one of the grey market places when building my PC to keep costs down (sorry if that's frowned upon).

IF mobo remains the same, then probably not. But the problem with gray keys is that microsoft keeps on disabling them, especially if they are shady, so you may lose your windows sooner or later.

[CandleJakk]

Just now, Some Random Member said:

Before wiping you hdd, something out of that 1.5tb must be valuable right? So back that up before.

Yeah I'm backing up saves, photos and work. I really don't know what is taking up most of the space lol, as I don't have that many games installed.

[userzero]

1 minute ago, CandleJakk said:

 

If I do this, do I need to buy another key? I bought a key from one of the grey market places when building my PC to keep costs down (sorry if that's frowned upon).

Nah. You can re-use the key. If it says its been activated too many times when you install a fresh copy of Windows then you can get them to reset it for you. Or live with a watermark and lack of personalisation if you don't activate

 

Your SSD will become your boot drive. Your old HDD will become your secondary drive. You won't be wiping anything.

[CandleJakk]

Just now, userzero said:

Nah. You can re-use the key. If it says its been activated too many times when you install a fresh copy of Windows then you can get them to reset it for you. Or live with a watermark and lack of personalisation if you don't activate

 

Your SSD will become your boot drive. Your old HDD will become your secondary drive. You won't be wiping anything.

Thanks for the info. How do I transfer my key? Do I just have to find the e-mail with it in, or what? And to address your second point, I will be using the 2TB HDD as a secondary drive, but I want to clear it up a bit.

[userzero]

Just now, CandleJakk said:

Thanks for the info. How do I transfer my key? Do I just have to find the e-mail with it in, or what? And to address your second point, I will be using the 2TB HDD as a secondary drive, but I want to clear it up a bit.

Transfer? You type it mate 

 

Yeah you can clear it out to your hearts content once you're up and running on your SSD.

[CandleJakk]

3 minutes ago, userzero said:

Transfer? You type it mate 

I'm aware, the thing is I don't know the key anymore. I'm happy to trudge through emails, but what I'm asking is if there's a way to just find the key I've used in a different way to that or if there's an easy way to just transfer Windows (on a sidenote, why is a fresh install beneficial? e: over just moving Windows).

[NinJake]

Check out WinDirStat, it visually shows you whats taking up the space on the hard drive. Really cool!

[LogicalDrm]

1 hour ago, CandleJakk said:

Thanks for the info. How do I transfer my key? Do I just have to find the e-mail with it in, or what? And to address your second point, I will be using the 2TB HDD as a secondary drive, but I want to clear it up a bit.

 

Which Windows it is? For Win8/.1 they might auto-activate on same mobo. Don't know, never used either. For Win7 and older its manual all the way (typing). For Win10 you have two options. One, same with 8/.1, it will auto-activate on same mobo. Two, you login to MS account and it activates.

 

1 hour ago, CandleJakk said:

 (on a sidenote, why is a fresh install beneficial? e: over just moving Windows).

Considering your current drive is HDD size of TB, you would need to migrate only OS related files. You are also talking about "small" SSD. Chances are that even migrate wouldn't give healthy results if you'd be trying to fit OS to 120gb drive. Besides, you started this by saying you want to get rid of unnecessary stuff. What the better way than installing OS again and installing software and games as you need them. You can keep all software folders, settings, configurations, profiles etc. on other drive. With most Steam, Origin, Battle.net and GOG Galaxy games you can just point at where files are. With software its reinstalls mainly, but with configuration files at hand, you can just re-insert those and have all (almost) like it used to be.

 

 

[CandleJakk]

26 minutes ago, LoGiCalDrm said:

 

Which Windows it is? For Win8/.1 they might auto-activate on same mobo. Don't know, never used either. For Win7 and older its manual all the way (typing). For Win10 you have two options. One, same with 8/.1, it will auto-activate on same mobo. Two, you login to MS account and it activates.

 

Considering your current drive is HDD size of TB, you would need to migrate only OS related files. You are also talking about "small" SSD. Chances are that even migrate wouldn't give healthy results if you'd be trying to fit OS to 120gb drive. Besides, you started this by saying you want to get rid of unnecessary stuff. What the better way than installing OS again and installing software and games as you need them. You can keep all software folders, settings, configurations, profiles etc. on other drive. With most Steam, Origin, Battle.net and GOG Galaxy games you can just point at where files are. With software its reinstalls mainly, but with configuration files at hand, you can just re-insert those and have all (almost) like it used to be.

 

 

Using Win10, and yeah I'm planning to get a 128GB SSD for OS only and probably some smaller games I use regularly like league

[CandleJakk]

39 minutes ago, NinJake said:

Check out WinDirStat, it visually shows you whats taking up the space on the hard drive. Really cool!

Yeah actually found it about an hour ago and got rid of like 300GB of stuff lol. Idk if there was a performance increase, but still nice.

[1337ROOT]

The best is a clean install;

when u "reset " it keep the old files, even if you choose to delete all.,

paranoid mode:

erase your HD with ones and zeros if possible (so you can get rid of bad stuff() - some bios of ASUS mobos have a secure erase option 

you can use diskpart command on CMD (google) 

 

or

(you can download any Linux live distro like fedora, ubuntu, Debian, etc and run gparted but be sure to know what u ara doing)