A simple guide for clean installing Windows 10/11
While no guide is completely comprehensive, I will try and make this as simple as possible. Personally, I am NOT a fan of "Resetting" from within Windows OR upgrading from Windows 10 to Windows 11. I much prefer a clean install of the operating system.
Before beginning, we have some work to do:
- Make a backup of anything you want to keep such as documents, pictures/videos, music, emails, etc. and store it on a second hard drive (internal or external) or other type of reliable media. Note a clean install will destroy ALL data on the drive so if you want to keep something be sure to make a backup.
- Go to the support page for your system or for your motherboard and download the drivers you are going to need. At the very least this should be the chipset/motherboard driver [sometimes called an .inf driver on an intel system]. If you are going to use wireless then grab the wireless driver. Many times the Windows 10 (and almost always Windows 11) operating systems will supply the necessary drivers. Understand that Windows drivers are not designed for performance; Windows drivers are designed for stability. If you are happy running Windows drivers, you can probably skip this part.
- On a working system download the Microsoft media creation tool Download Windows 10 (microsoft.com) OR Download Windows 11 (microsoft.com)
- Run the tool and create the bootable USB. Note the USB drive must be at least 8 GB. I generally use a 16 GB drive because when finished creating the bootable USB I put additional things on it such as drivers, utilities, etc. (do NOT put these items on the USB drive before creating the bootable USB).
Note the following screenshots are from a Windows 10 install. Windows 11 will be very similar however the wording might be slightly different.
Now run the tool.
Once done with creating the bootable USB we have just a few things to do prior to doing the actual install. IF you have more than one drive in your system make sure the system is OFF. Open the side cover and remove the Power or SATA cable from whatever drive you DO NOT want windows installed on. If you only have a single drive then disregard this step.
Next, most motherboards OR systems have a quick boot menu. If you have an Asus motherboard it is F8, a Gigabyte board is F12, an Asrock board is F11. If you have a big box system such as Dell, Hewlett Packard, etc. consult your manual to find which key or key combination gives access to the quick boot menu. This is a very neat feature since you do not have to change the boot order in the BIOS. Note if you have the fast boot option turned ON in the BIOS you won't be able to access the quick boot menu. It's up to you if you want to disable this feature until the install is done OR change the boot order.
Place the install bootable USB in a USB port and power ON the system. Hit the appropriate key for your quick boot menu. If you have more than one option for the USB choose partition 1.
Setup starts and you see the following screen:
Hit the "Install now" button and you will then see this screen:
We want Custom because we are going to delete ALL partitions on the drive. The next screen shows you the drive and how many partitions there are on the drive:
Delete ALL partitions on the drive. Note you will receive a message asking if you're sure, click "Yes" or "Agree". When done you should see only one entry and it should say "unallocated". Click the "Next" button.
You may or may not see the next screen. This is where you would enter your install key. If you have ever had Windows 10 installed on this system just click on "I do not have a key" and continue. If this is a new build then you would enter the key.
Setup will continue and you will see the screen where you have to agree to the terms of use.
Once you click "Next" that's about it. Setup runs and you basically just watch, play with your phone or do something else. The only other thing you need to do during the install is to decide if you want a local account OR use your Microsoft account. Personally, I always use a local account. That is up to you.
Setup will show a screen where you choose what you want to share with Microsoft. I turn all of these OFF. Again, it's up to you if you want to share data with Microsoft.
Once the install finishes shut the system down and reconnect any drives you disconnected before beginning the install. If you didn't disconnect anything then disregard the above.
Now install your chipset driver and any other drivers as necessary. If your internet works then there's no real need to install a LAN or wireless driver. If your video looks fine then there's no real need to install the video driver. Note if you have a video card such as NVIDIA or AMD then it is a good idea to go to their site and download the latest driver for it. Windows does supply a basic NVIDIA or AMD driver, however, IF you have one of these cards you probably want the latest driver.
Now you just have to install whatever software programs you normally use such as Microsoft Office, CCleaner, etc.
That's about it. Doing a windows install is not difficult and on a fast system it takes all of about ten minutes or so. Allow another hour or so to install drivers and software and to copy your saved files back.
Done!
