No, you shouldn't remove other drive partitions when installing Windows 10.
No, you shouldn't remove other drive partitions when installing Windows 10.
I need to reinstall Windows 10 because of a post-infection problem. During setup I see several partitions listed—should I remove the ones that aren’t needed? My system has just one Samsung 970 Evo 2 TB and the Windows installer is connected. In the setup window, Drive 0 Partition 1 shows recovery info, Drive 0 Partition 2 lists system drive space, etc. Since I’m replacing the OS, the previous installation should be erased automatically. Let me know if you have more questions!
Usually I rely on a boot USB (Linux typically) and completely erase the disk before starting fresh. Installation requires you to set up a new partition on the empty drive. I never install on more than one drive at once, since Windows tends to store critical data on separate drives—removing them could ruin the setup because M$ is a bunch of confused people about certain things.
You should clear all current partitions and set up a fresh one. Windows will handle the rest automatically. Keep only the main partition if you have a backup on top of it. If you have extra partitions, just delete the ones that aren’t needed. Let me know if this clarifies things.
Please note that the input you provided appears unchanged. I omitted the clarification about the default selection and asked whether you should remove the other options. Let me know if you'd like me to explain further.
For a brand new Windows setup, I recommend deleting all other partitions. I’m not familiar with how Windows manages existing ones, but it could cause issues, so removing them is safer. Just make sure you’re not using any other drives or secondary partitions on the boot device. If applicable, decide which ones to keep carefully.