To make this concept crystal clear, let's look at some practical examples:
An hour later, Leo was back at his desktop. The wallpaper was the default blue ribbon. The icons were gone. He held his breath and opened File Explorer.
Once Windows is installed, you can plug your other drives back in. They will appear exactly as they were. Final Verdict: Does a Clean Install Wipe All Drives? Standard Clean Install: No. Only the OS drive is wiped.
Disconnect all external hard drives, USB flash drives, and memory cards before booting into the installation media. 3. Label Your Drives Beforehand
If you want to make sure your upcoming installation goes smoothly, tell me: What are you installing?
While your personal files (photos, videos, documents) on secondary drives will remain perfectly safe, software is a different story.
The safest approach for a Linux clean install is to physically disconnect all drives except the target drive before beginning the installation. One Ubuntu user explained this approach: "For a clean install on one disk with your data on a different physical disk, I start with only the physical disk connected and powered. On that disk I let the Ubuntu distribution have free rein to wipe out and install as it decides best".
While the process is designed to be selective, all drives can be wiped if you:
A clean install is a highly effective maintenance tool. By taking the time to understand the drive selection screen, backing up your data, and disconnecting secondary hardware, you can achieve a fresh, fast system without losing a single megabyte of your secondary storage. If you are getting ready to refresh your PC, let me know: What are you planning to install? Are you using a desktop PC or a laptop ? How many internal storage drives does your computer have?
The short answer is