- Jul 30, 2013
- 89
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- 10,660
Hello people of Tom's Hardware. I do believe I have this in the right section. Today I am reaching out to you for some help on an issue. Let me give you some background.
About a year ago and a half ago, my parents bought me an Hp computer, the Hp Envy 88-1414 to be exact, at the local bestbuy because I had been wanting to have a gaming pc,but we had a major but here. I wanted to build it myself, but they thought I wasn't capable of the task, even though I had been working on computers for several years. Well fast forward that year and a half, and I am sitting with a dead mobo, an out of warranty computer, and free run to build using some of the parts that came with it, but enough on that.
What is going on is I am having to purchase a new copy of windows since I cant use my Hp copy due to the licensing agreement. I also have a spare empty hard drive that I would prefer to install my OS on just in case I ever get an ssd. BTW, my old copy of 8.1 from Hp is installed on the 1TB that came with the computer, along with all my files. So anyways, my question here is,
1) can I uninstalled windows from that drive without losing anything, games, documents, pictures?
2) if that isnt possible, my next idea is to create an hdd image of my 1tb on removable storage and reformat it during the windows installation. If i do that, I could just delete all the windows files, but, which major folders do I delete?
If neither of those ideas work, then please just give me suggestions on what to do since I really don't want to make this a several day process and just get it done in an afternoon.
About a year ago and a half ago, my parents bought me an Hp computer, the Hp Envy 88-1414 to be exact, at the local bestbuy because I had been wanting to have a gaming pc,but we had a major but here. I wanted to build it myself, but they thought I wasn't capable of the task, even though I had been working on computers for several years. Well fast forward that year and a half, and I am sitting with a dead mobo, an out of warranty computer, and free run to build using some of the parts that came with it, but enough on that.
What is going on is I am having to purchase a new copy of windows since I cant use my Hp copy due to the licensing agreement. I also have a spare empty hard drive that I would prefer to install my OS on just in case I ever get an ssd. BTW, my old copy of 8.1 from Hp is installed on the 1TB that came with the computer, along with all my files. So anyways, my question here is,
1) can I uninstalled windows from that drive without losing anything, games, documents, pictures?
2) if that isnt possible, my next idea is to create an hdd image of my 1tb on removable storage and reformat it during the windows installation. If i do that, I could just delete all the windows files, but, which major folders do I delete?
If neither of those ideas work, then please just give me suggestions on what to do since I really don't want to make this a several day process and just get it done in an afternoon.
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