Please help with new windows OS disk

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otieatkins

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Jan 12, 2011
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Hello. I have a multitude of problems and am dumb as a haddock so will need walk through.
My windows 10 is really messed up. I tried the fixes and they didn't work. So, I bought myself a new disk. A 3 TB which of course doesn't work because of the MBR only allowing 2 TB.
What I want to do but don't know how to: I don't want to wipe my C drive clean because there's programs on their I use. I want to install windows 10 again fresh. I can't use my new drive for it because of all the wasted space and you can't use a GPT? drive for OS.
I'm in a mess.Can someone please help?
Thank You, Dianne
 
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hang-the-9


When you install a new setup of Windows 10, you need to re-install your programs. But not wiping the original drive is a good idea since you...
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ArtPog

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Sep 17, 2014
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First of all it seems I read somewhere that haddock are fairly smart fish. The dumb ones are the ones that get caught. But we'll let that subject go for another time, OK?..

Let's start more or less from the beginning so we can get a reasonably good idea of your present situation.

1. Presumably you have a working PC with a viable OS installed, right? And that OS is?...

2. Is your PC a desktop or a laptop/notebook? An OEM machine or one you or someone else built ("generic")? If you know the make/model of the PC and/or the make/model of the PC's motherboard, so state...

3. And the HDD or SSD on that PC that contains the OS is?... (indicate total disk-space capacity & total amount of data on the drive).

4. Now you want to fresh-install Win 10 onto that drive. For some reason you desire a fresh-install of the OS rather than upgrading the present system to Win 10. Why is that?

5. How are you planning to fresh-install the Win 10 OS? You have an installation DVD? Or the Microsoft installation file on a USB flash drive? What?...

6. Now you're planning to make this fresh-install on the drive that contains your present system, yes? Or are you planning to use an empty disk? Whatever disk you're planning to use, how is it partitioned - MBR or GPT?

7. I won't ask you about those "multitude of problems" you're having I don't think I want to know (at least for now). But can I assume your present system (you've sent this post on that system, right?) boots & functions reasonably well? Or are there major problems with it?

8. Before we go any further (assuming you want to)...make absolutely certain you backup whatever programs, personal data, etc. you need before we start anything. Capiche?



 
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hang-the-9

hang-the-9

Titan
Mar 25, 2010
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When you install a new setup of Windows 10, you need to re-install your programs. But not wiping the original drive is a good idea since you can use that as a backup and not have to copy files back and forth twice, only once from old drive to new one.

Need to know your motherboard brand and model to know if it will work with a 3 TB drive properly or the issue is something else.

Easiest way, get a smaller drive, install Windows 10 clean on that (you can download the media from Microsoft), copy your files from the original drive. Assuming you are talking about a home built system, for an pre-built one it's easier to copy your files to an external drive (desktop, my documents, favorites, any settings you want to note) and use the recovery option to set the thing to factory new.
 
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