Processing the HDD formatting
Processing the HDD formatting
I just got a new SSD for my PC and now I'm thinking about moving my operating system and other files there for maximum performance. However, I noticed my hard drive has a lot of unnecessary files that I want to remove. The question is: how can I format my HDD (which actually holds the OS) without moving any data from the HDD to the SSD? I don’t want to transfer anything, just perform a thorough clean.
Use Windows Recovery, reinstall Windows, and when prompted to install Windows, select the "Recover my PC" option in the corner.
You'd insert the SSD with a bootable media like a CD or USB, then erase it before installing Windows. From there, you'd use Windows to format the E: drive. This seems like the simplest approach.
Set up SSD installation for OS on an SSD, convert your old HDD into a secondary drive, transfer data from the HDD to the SSD, and erase the secondary drive.
Confirming your concern, did you believe you were instructed not to copy data?
someone has either a fresh operating system ready or needs to move files manually—why not worry about the transfer?