Clean install

People, a little help!

I'm going to do a clean install for the first time with MediaCreationToolW11, so I'd just be interested, do I have to delete the whole C partition during installation?

Attached are images of the discs.

Yes. And you should delete every partition on the disk until it is nothing but unallocated space.

@NavyLCDR

This new thread has reminded me of a question I have.

Clean installing 11 tomorrow on a new blank SSD. Nothing but unallocated space will be there. Assuming the installation will create the partitions it needs, and leave the rest of the disk as unallocated space, and I can then create a new partition volume for my new Drive D, can you tell me how much of the new SSD Win11 will occupy by default with its several partitions?

Wisewiz said:

@NavyLCDR

This new thread has reminded me of a question I have.

Clean installing 11 tomorrow on a new blank SSD. Nothing but unallocated space will be there. Assuming the installation will create the partitions it needs, and leave the rest of the disk as unallocated space, and I can then create a new partition volume for my new Drive D, can you tell me how much of the new SSD Win11 will occupy by default with its several partitions?

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Windows 10 and Windows 11 setup will occupy the entire physical disk by default. If you want a D drive partition afterward, you need to shrink C drive to make room for it.

Many thanks. I'll get 'er done that way.

When you clean install, the process will first allocate the disks - C drive and about 3 small system parititions. It will ask you what size you want for the C drive, with the default being the remaining space. You can specify what size you want, but on my SSDs I've set the C drive as 100 Gb and only use that for Windows. All data is elsewhere so I can easily back up and restore the C drive with Macrium Reflect.

RFS said:

When you clean install, the process will first allocate the disks - C drive and about 3 small system parititions. It will ask you what size you want for the C drive, with the default being the remaining space. You can specify what size you want, but on my SSDs I've set the C drive as 100 Gb and only use that for Windows. All data is elsewhere so I can easily back up and restore the C drive with Macrium Reflect.

Click to expand...

In the hundreds of clean installs I have done to unallocated drives, Windows setup has never asked me what size I want to make C: drive. In this tutorial can you show where it asks for what size you want C: drive to be?

I clean installed from an ISO on 10/4 without any prep to the drive that contained the .194 build. The disk had the usual 4 partitions with a C: and D: drive. During setup I just selected the C: drive, and none of the other were impacted.

Be aware that the install, with an MS account, may create a different account name to what you may have had before. It does not let you create the account with a specific name. This really only matters if you restore any configuration files that point to the old account name.

And unplug all other drives (just the power cable) or disable all other drives in the Bios.
Your installer should only see 1 drive to install windows on.

NavyLCDR said:

In the hundreds of clean installs I have done to unallocated drives, Windows setup has never asked me what size I want to make C: drive. In this tutorial can you show where it asks for what size you want C: drive to be?

Clean Install Windows 11 Tutorial

Windows 11 has all the power and security of Windows 10 with a redesigned and refreshed look. It also comes with new tools, sounds, and apps. Every detail has been considered. All of it comes together to bring you a refreshing experience on your PC. See also...

www.elevenforum.com

Click to expand...

When you get to step 11, where you have a completely unallocated volume, instead of clicking "next", click "new". You will then be prompted for a size which will default to the max size.

In the example the next screen shows a pre-alloacted volume with data which must be a different volume.