Fresh win7 Install: is it safe to delete windows.old folder / partition ?

So when doing a fresh install of win7 ultimate it said it would make a windows.old folder/partition, containing everything on the drive I'm overwriting

Now it's all done I can see its 50gb In size and has everything that was there before the fresh install

So is it safe to just delete this windows.old folder as I already backed everything up


Also I remember someone posted a thread which explains what each Asia driver does & if it is essential, but can't find the thread
Does anyone have a link to it?

Can un-needed drivers be removed/deleted?


Thank you

 

Careful - since you have another thread up with similar questions, this might get moved or deleted. I replied to it as well, so refer to my response for help.

As for drivers - you cannot pick and choose what drivers you want at install, save for SATA/RAID drivers. All the essentials are loaded; the only way around this is a custom build of Windows (which requires hacking).

And yes, you can delete the Windows.old folder; it sounds like you did an upgrade and not a clean install. A clean install would not have yielded you with the .old folder.

 

sorry i'll make sure i dont make new threds on this,

i wanted to do a clean install but once i ran the win7 ultimate cd i only had two options, upgrade or custom install.

so i just selected the custom install and selected the main drive - the other partition was a refcovery partition which i stupidly deleted/cleared, so the F9 recovery asus program doesnt load now,


as there are only those 2 options when i run win7 ultimate., how do i do a clean install?

 

You only get the upgrade option if you're going from an older OS or lower edition of the same version of Windows (example: Win 7 Home Premium to Win 7 Professional). So custom was the right choice for a clean install.

I saw (in yet a third thread you created ) that you have unallocated space now in Disk Management. When you format your drive, you need to make it one partition. It looks like you didn't "delete" the recovery partition; you merely formatted it's contents.

 

thanks,

so no im a bit lost how i can recover the 'Recover' partition/files

as when i done the custom install it opens the ,partitions i can select

and since removing/deleting the recovery partition (25gb) it only displays the C:/ partition (275gb) as an option,
so how do i go about finding or re-installing the recovery partition

if i can't, how do i re-allocate that 25gb into my C:/ partition?
ive gone through the disk management section section but the option i want - combine drive/partition i think it was, is grayed out so can't select it

 

Yes, it's grayed out because it is not properly formatted. You can try formatting it from Disk Management if you're given the option, and then try merging the free space with the C:\ partition.

If by "recover the Recover partition", you mean "how do I get the recovery options back to that partition", then you will need to download the Asus recovery console and probably burn the recovery process to discs. They may have a guide to show you how to get it back on the drive, but really, there's not much need for it - especially with all that bloatware that comes with it!

 

thanks prostar,

good point about the restore files,
i can buy a recovery dvd with win7 ultimate for £20 but like you said i will just end up deletimg all the programs, so would be pointless
- im just concerned doing things the way i have hasnt cleared the drive fully, like a recovery would

so i formatted the 25gb partition to NTFS (same as big partition) but the option to extend the big partition is still grayed out:
same happens when i right click the 25gb drive





what can i do?

thanks

 

bump .

 

I would say you may need to go through the Windows install process again, but since it's formatted, just "Delete" the partition (delete all partitions, actually). Then you should have one large, unpartitioned space to install Windows on.

Note that Delete and Format are two separate options during the install process. Formatting a partition prepares it for data to be written, while Deleting a partition removes the divider that made it a separate partition on the drive/volume.