is it Really Necessary to Disconnect all other drives before a clean install?

bikemanAMD said:

Hello All

is it really necessary to disconnect all other drives before a Windows 11 Clean install?

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No, it is not necessary.

Update:

early this morning, plugged in the Prepared Windows 11 USB flash drive, this time ei.cfg file worked right, and successfully installed Pro onto my boot M.2 first try.

Didn't bother switching the M.2 drives around as since cleaning room for the darn Townhome inspection, couldn't find my Magentic M.2 screwdriver, so i was like do i really wanna mess with M2 slot 1, and change the drives around, then i was like well guess not today lol.

So just made sure i got the right drive in Windows setup, and i did, after installed Diskpart cleaned the other 2 drives, rebooted system booted right back into Windows just fine. proceeded with installs of updates, drivers and such. Then did my first Macrium Reflect X image. After that proceeded to install Games onto Drive D (Game NVMe)

So far working just fine

Bonus: Looks like Windows store updating the same apps daily issue is fixed as well, will update that post once i'm sure it is fully lol.

**Still a few things to adjust and install as yet, but overall all is good i think now**

Just a quick note about the whole "disconnecting drives" thing. If you make the decision to go that route (disconnecting all drives except the one to which Windows will be installed), be aware that the BIOS on some systems can make this trivially easy. For example, on my ASUS MB I can individually disable any SATA and / or M.2 slots. So, it's as easy as disabling in the BIOS, then re-enabling when I'm done, although admittedly I never really do that. Even though I have ten drives, I always do all my installations with everything attached and enabled.

I'll admit i did that a few times in the past disconnecting every drive except main one on older systems.

i debated on doing it early this morning--then i was like well i'll try without, as lightning in this room isn't the best, and i was like this hopefully goes well, if doesn't my own fault

And Thankfully went fine!!

I worried about it a bit, but then again i worry on alot of stuff at times lol. Spent about 3 days worrying on this task lol, and finally i was like i guess i'll try with all attached this time lol. Last clean install on Christmas i did with only 1 drive attached

Macrium Reflect X backup is done!, will not delete the clean install image this time lol.

still a few things to get installed and tidy up startup items, not sure i need Creative App for my Pebble speakers loading at every start up or not, but i guess i'll figure that part out later lol.

Discord, Spotify, gonna make sure don't load at startup, i can open those manually if i want it open lol

Did get the latest driver for Creative Pebble speakers with Creative app though, appears Creative doesn't list drivers for Download lol