Installed "twice", did it go correctly?

[turre2]

Hey!

I'm looking for a quick confirmation and ease of mind on my first Windows 10 installation. Here's what's up:

- Completely new, off the package, clean SSD (500gb).
- Installed new Win 10 with Media creation USB drive.
- Didn't realize I had to partition my drive at the beginning of the installtion.
- Didn't really know how to properly start over, so I went and set the PC to boot again from Media creation USB drive.
- "Manually" deleted all 4 partitions that the first install had created (two small ones, 16mb and 100mb, the recovery one and the main partition)
- Created new partitions, 117gb and 347gb. It automatically created the other ones as well.
- Installed Windows 10.

Was this routine OK? I'm really not looking forward to possible future issues an incomplete wipe might cause. Does the media creation tool wipe the disc properly, as it did it very, very quickly? I'm a bit afraid to continue installing software & drivers and connecting my data HDD before I'm certain that the base (=windows) is completely fine.

 

[Ralston18]

Reinstalling Windows 10 should have set the drive up correctly.

How are the partitions labeled?

For example (via Disk Management using a 256 GB SSD):

System Reserved 100MB
(C 210.08 GB
Healthy (Recovery) Partition 450 MB
Unallocated 12.95 GB

What are the named partitions and partition sizes on your disk? E.g., that 16 MB partition in particular - not sure about that....

In any case if there is still some uncertainty then you can try again. Gets easier as you become familiar with the process and what happens as the installation goes forward.

If you are not certain about the installation procedure itself then go to this link within this Forum:

http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-3680359/media-creation-tool-windows.html

 

[turre2]

Now that I look into my disc management, there are 4 partitions:

-Healthy (Recovery), 499mb
-Healthy 100mb (no label or anything)
-Healthy C: 117gb
-Healthy D: 347gb (This I created myself)

Can't really see anything wrong here, I'm just a bit worried there is something left (hidden?) from the first installation that might conflict with the current one at some point. Don't really know if that's even possible though. If I'd be doing this again, I'd probably end up doing it the same way anyways. The straightforward question here is: does it matter that I didn't "format" the partitions prior deleting, just straight up deleted them. Is the end result the same? The deletion process happened so quickly that it's having me doubting.

About that 16mb, not sure if it was precisely that size. But there was a tiny partition, I guessed it had something to do with the installation process itself. Just deleted it among others.

 

[turre2]

What are the named partitions and partition sizes on your disk? E.g., that 16 MB partition in particular - not sure about that....

Found the 16mb partition. It was labeled "MSR (Reserved)" in the partition window of the Windows installation process. Seen in the first picture of this lifewire article.

 

[Ralston18]

I believe that all is well.

As long as you have your data backed up (hopefully in at least two different locations and verified readable) then just go forward.

My overall caution is just go slow and only load more applications or change configurations one or two at a time. Keep notes and watch the OS carefully.

If something goes astray you will probably know what action caused the problem. Versus a dozen possible causes.

Definitely a learning curve.

 

[turre2]

I believe that all is well.

As long as you have your data backed up (hopefully in at least two different locations and verified readable) then just go forward.

My overall caution is just go slow and only load more applications or change configurations one or two at a time. Keep notes and watch the OS carefully.

If something goes astray you will probably know what action caused the problem. Versus a dozen possible causes.

Definitely a learning curve.

Thank you for taking the time to look into this! I'll probably keep going following your advice, since everything seems to run fine.

If anyone has any insights to add to this "" issue "" I'm happy to hear it still.

 

[Ralston18]

You are welcome.

As for:

"If anyone has any insights to add to this "" issue "" I'm happy to hear it still. "

I agree.

 

[Colif]

the 4 it created were likely these

Partition 1 - Recovery
Partition 2 - System - The EFI System partition that contains the NTLDR, HAL, Boot.txt, and other files that are needed to boot the system, such as drivers.
Partition 3 - MSR - The Microsoft Reserved (MSR) partition that reserves space on each disk drive for subsequent use by operating system software.
Partition 4 - Primary - Where Windows is to be installed to.

as those are the 4 default partitions set up by a win 10 install.

That isn't to say you need all 4, I only have 2 partitions
C - 232.44gb
Healthy recovery partition - 450mb

but then when i did it, I didn't know what I was doing and deleted the 4 it created and made my own. For a long time I only had 1 partition. I have learned better and recognise just by looking at my partitions that I am using MBR instead of GPT on C drive (as is Ralston above)