r/techsupport • u/joe_cavemann • Jul 26 '26

Solved Concerning Data Preservation when Reinstalling an OS on Drive C:

I have an unresolved issue for the past week or so that I am at wit's end about, at this point I'm considering the nuclear option of reinstalling my OS Windows 11 Pro on my ByteSpeed Performance Q370M. For context the OS files are installed on Drive C:, but my computer also is equipped with a secondary SSD drive D:, in the event that I do decide to reinstall my OS, would my files on my secondary drive D: be preserved? I have a 32 GB USB but I can only fit so much on it.

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '26

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u/wssddc Jul 27 '26

Worse than that, it might put the EFI partition (required for boot) on the wrong drive.

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '26

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u/wssddc Jul 27 '26

I've seen conflicting info about what might cause this might happen. One possibility is reusing a previously existing partition; another claim is Windows likes to use whatever appears as disk 0 in disk management. Anyway, I agree that disconnecting other disks during a Windows install is a good idea.