Clean Install of Windows 10 - will it free up C: drive storage space?

[original.woodster]

Clean Install of Windows 10 - will it free up C: drive storage space

I recently upgraded my Windows 7 laptop to Win10. However, before I did the upgrade, I did a clean factory install of Win7, kept installing Automatic Updates until I get the option to Upgrade to Win10.

I have a 500gb HDD, that is partitioned in to two, C: for OS and D: for Local Disk (storage), currently the C: drive is 58.5gb, of which I have 13.5gb left, this is with having only Windows 10 installed AND Printer Driver and Software.

Is there any benefit of creating the Windows 10 media disk, reformatting with this Win10 disk, and getting rid of any of the rubbish that might of been installed in the process of doing a clean install of Win7.

OR re partitioning the Drive, so I can steal some of the storage from D: and give it to C: . I have 397GB of unused space on D:

I also just noticed, it states I have a Partition called RECOVERY, however, I don't seem to have this on My Computer view.

 

[vdamir78]

Re: Clean Install of Windows 10 - will it free up C: drive storage space

A similar question: How do I create an installation of Win10 so I can burn it on a DVD or keep it on USB to have it incase something goes wrong and I need to reinstall win10 again?

 

[Tsang Fai]

Re: Clean Install of Windows 10 - will it free up C: drive storage space

I also just noticed, it states I have a Partition called RECOVERY, however, I don't seem to have this on My Computer view.

Yes, many laptop PCs have a partition named "RECOVERY" so that you can recover from a damaged Windows without using a Windows DVD/USB. In your case, that partition should contains a recovery image of your Windows 7.

You can have a look on all partitions using "Disk Management" utility. Press Win Key + X and then choose "Disk Management". File Explorer does not show this partition.

 

[Rasetech]

Re: Clean Install of Windows 10 - will it free up C: drive storage space

A similar question: How do I create an installation of Win10 so I can burn it on a DVD or keep it on USB to have it incase something goes wrong and I need to reinstall win10 again?

Microsoft Media Creation Tool

 

[Tsang Fai]

Re: Clean Install of Windows 10 - will it free up C: drive storage space

A similar question: How do I create an installation of Win10 so I can burn it on a DVD or keep it on USB to have it incase something goes wrong and I need to reinstall win10 again?

Media Creation Tool is supposed to do this: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Or do you mean to create a snapshot of your Windows 10 (including apps & files) as a DVD/USB?

 

[vdamir78]

Re: Clean Install of Windows 10 - will it free up C: drive storage space

Microsoft Media Creation Tool

thx

 

[Josh Hearn]

Re: Clean Install of Windows 10 - will it free up C: drive storage space

Yes, many laptop PCs have a partition named "RECOVERY" so that you can recover from a damaged Windows without using a Windows DVD/USB. In your case, that partition should contains a recovery image of your Windows 7.

You can have a look on all partitions using "Disk Management" utility. Press Win Key + X and then choose "Disk Management". File Explorer does not show this partition.

I actually just checked my disk management and noticed I have 4 healthy recovery partitions. 3 of which say 450-490mb's of space and the other 11.69GB. But I'm curious why its 4 total partitions.

But to go back to the original topic. Upgrading to Windows 10 was supposed to free up 10-15gb of hard drive space users didn't have before with Win 7 or Win. I ran disk cleanup and deleted the old windows installation files. And I still have more hard drive space used than pre Windows 10 install. So what gives. I removed 21GB from the old Windows installation files but still using 10gb more hard drive space than on 8.1 and I should have 10-15gb less than before so that's an extra 20 GB somewhere not counting the 21gb I removed by disk cleanup after the Windows 10 upgrade was finished

 

[Tsang Fai]

Re: Clean Install of Windows 10 - will it free up C: drive storage space

I actually just checked my disk management and noticed I have 4 healthy recovery partitions. 3 of which say 450-490mb's of space and the other 11.69GB. But I'm curious why its 4 total partitions.

Similar situation as you. Only recently have I discovered my Surface Pro 3 has several "recovery" partitions of relatively small sizes (<500 Mb). I am not sure exactly where they came from. I suspect they were created when I installed Win10 TP a long time ago (and then rolled back to Win 8.1).

Anyway, I deleted all the "recovery" partitions and then did a clean install of Windows 10. No more "zombie" files / partitions now, I guess..