Expert assistance with wiping drive clean and fresh re-installing windows 10

[Rhaegyn]

Hi LTT community, 

I just came into a new desktop PC and, due to needing to get rid of the pre-installed bloatware, I need to fully clean the drive and re-install W10. Currently, the most sure way to fully wipe the drive and have a truly clean install is to use the USB flash tool provided by microsoft on their website and use the flash drive to manually delete the partitions/drives and then install clean from scratch, but Microsoft recently offered a new feature in windows 10 called "refresh" and I wanted to get an experts opinion on the following:

- Is using the new "refresh" feature in windows equivalent to using the flash drive method and manually deleting the partitions and then re-installing the OS, and if so what are the differences? 

- Which method would you recommend I use given that I want absolutely no left over files and the cleanest install of W10 possible on my new desktop device (as brand new as out of the box)?

- Given your recommendation, would you please provide me with steps/links in which you would go about clearing/re-installing the OS using your method?

I have previously used the "reset" feature within windows 10 and it seemed to leave left over stuff so I am searching for the very best way to always make sure I fully clear the drives and re-install the cleanest OS from scratch on my devices. 

 

[Multipack]

Do it from outside the OS i.e use a USB flash drive.

Go through the installation process, and when you get to the stage that it asks where you want to install, just delete all partitions on the hard drive, don't create any new ones and install to the totally blank drive. Windows will create the partitions itself.

 

[Colif]

You don't need to wipe win 10 before running the installer, its part of the process.

This shows in pictures what the person above was explaining about a fresh install: http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/1950-windows-10-clean-install.html

if your PC isn't set up to boot off USB< you can do that from within win 10.
From desktop, open settings/update & security/recovery
under Advanced Startup in the riught hand column, click restart now
this loads you into a blue menu
choose Use a device
Put USB into PC and select it from list, PC will restart and boot off USB

 

[Rhaegyn]

Thanks so much for the replies. To be sure, simply booting from the freshly made W10 USB drive I can simply go to:

- install
- custom
- delete the partitions for all the drives
- and simply install the OS on the SSD

and this will fully (absolutely) clear all files/folder on the drive and allow me to install a new OS as clean as it possibly can be? Sorry for the followup, I just want to be sure that no bloatware/files or folders are left over so that my system can be as new as day 1 of assembly out of the box.

 

[Colif]

Yes. that is correct. the drive will be wiped before win 10 is installed so it will only have win 10 and nothing else on it.

When you get to part of install asking for licence key, click "I don't have a key" and it will reactivate on install