Windows 7 Reinstall Question

Atomic · 28 Dec 2011 at 17:04

I want to do my annual reinstall of Windows, so I have a nice clean and fresh O/S for 2012. Impressivly, I may not NEED to do this as Win & is still very snappy, but I want to do it anyway.

Anyway, I have to normal hard drives in Raid more for speed and have been fine.

I have two partitions.

One partition (c) 833GB in size and this is my main one with Windows 7 and all programs installed.

The other partition (d) is around 97GB in size and is my Data drive for large files such as DSLR photographs or downloads. I only have around 13GB of data.

My question is do I have to 'get rid' (delete them both and remake the partitions and the raid array) of both partitions for a good reinstall of Win 7 or just format the C drive/partition when I get the option to during the Win 7 setup and procede with the installation whilst keeping drivers and files on the d drive?

Finally, is there any good tips for how I should structure my partitions?

Deception · 28 Dec 2011 at 18:03

Can just format the partition you want while leaving the others intact. When I install Windows 7, I normally allocate 100gb to the OS and then the other free space, I usually use for data. This way, if I ever need to format or lose my OS, all my data is still intact in another partition

Hope that helps.

Atomic · 28 Dec 2011 at 18:19

Deception said:
Can just format the partition you want while leaving the others intact. When I install Windows 7, I normally allocate 100gb to the OS and then the other free space, I usually use for data. This way, if I ever need to format or lose my OS, all my data is still intact in another partition

Hope that helps.

When you mean data do you mean additional files like photos, or the installation paths of programs and games?

Thanks. I will keep the partition

cats_five · 29 Dec 2011 at 10:42

I install everything that gives me a choice in D:. My data - documents, photos etc. - is all in E:. Downloads are also in D: or E:. including drivers, so reinstalling is easy. Many programs when reinstalled on top of a directory they were previously installed in pick up any customisations etc. in the files under the directory - I found Word for example didn't create normal.dot / normal.dotx if they already existed.