Has anybody formatted SSD and clean installed Win 8.1?

[phositadc]

I'll have to look into it more, but my plan would be to do a clean install and make sure I get everything working before I kill the recovery partition. If I somehow screw it up or can't get everything working, then I'll restore from recovery (assuming that's possible). Anyways, I don't even own an SP3 yet, so I won't get around to this for another week or two, but I'll report back when I do (and in the meantime, would still love to hear from others who have done this).

 

[kozak79]

Interesting, thanks. So after you did your clean reset, you did not re-enable HyperV, and everything worked fine?

Or when you use the word "reset," are you referring to the "factory reset" option on the Surface Pro, which would simply restore it to factory condition and presumably negate your clean install?

I did a full factory reset, which reset the device to when I first got it. I did not turn on Hyper-V this time and had no issues since. I'm have a 256gb i7 SP3.

 

[FlySwatter]

... But unless doing my own, clean install is affirmatively a bad idea for some reason, I'll probably give it a go....

Nope, I can't say that. I noticed someone mentioned bitlocker. If you don't use it, and it's decrypted and disabled, then I don't see disaster in your future. I wouldn't invest that time personally, but knowing that you'll feel better with the clean install after reading everyone's opinions, then I wouldn't try to dissuade you further.

 

[bluegrass]

I would think that you'll never have the option of doing a factory reset if you remove the partition which the reset uses. When rebuilding XP systems, I use to always boot the XP cd and format the disk than continue to install the OS. That has changed in the past several years since most manufactures build their systems with a factory rebuild partition. I assumed since all your data is lost that using those partitions gives a very clean installation with the exception of bloatware which I manually remove.

Also I'm not sure that when we install an updated driver that the old driver is still hanging around. I won't say that it isn't; I've just never read elsewise.

 

[GreyFox7]

Regarding the recovery partition I read where if you created a wim image you could replace the image in the recovery partition with your own and resize the partition if necessary.

 

[ctitanic]

I learned yesterday, courtesy of this forum, that the SP3 has a "factory reset" option.

But, being the geek that I am, I like to do a completely clean install of Windows on all of my new computers, and I generally like to delete the recovery partitions larding up the SSD.

Has anybody done such a thing on the SP3? Is it as simple as cleaning the drive with disk part, re-partitioning using the Win 8.1 installer, installing Win 8.1, and then installing the latest Surface Pro 3 driver pack (http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=38826)? Or is there more to do it than that?

Would love to hear from anybody who has done it. (or better yet, if anybody has written a step by step guide, I'd love to see it).

While it's possible I would not recommend to do your own install.

 

[Danielo290881]

Because i am from germany i did a clean install of a german windows 8.1 update 1. But i have to say, that it didn't work really good. So i decided to install he original OS from USB Stick again and then it was working much better (only few errors in some weeks). Last week i did a full factory reset, not from usb stick, but on recovery hard disk. And i had no error for 4 days now.

 

[GreyFox7]

Because i am from germany i did a clean install of a german windows 8.1 update 1. But i have to say, that it didn't work really good. So i decided to install he original OS from USB Stick again and then it was working much better (only few errors in some weeks). Last week i did a full factory reset, not from usb stick, but on recovery hard disk. And i had no error for 4 days now.

Did you use the Surface Driver Pack when you did your install of the German Windows!

 

[malberttoo]

I'll have to look into it more, but my plan would be to do a clean install and make sure I get everything working before I kill the recovery partition. If I somehow screw it up or can't get everything working, then I'll restore from recovery (assuming that's possible). Anyways, I don't even own an SP3 yet, so I won't get around to this for another week or two, but I'll report back when I do (and in the meantime, would still love to hear from others who have done this).

I would definitely make an image of the whole drive before I nuked the recovery partition.

 

[Danielo290881]

Did you use the Surface Driver Pack when you did your install of the German Windows!

It wasnt a problem. The first thing in windows update was a firmware update so i had all drivers again. But as i said, i had some errors while working with it. Not bad. But in relation to now it was really faulty. Don't know if i am lucky now, but of course i am thinking now that a recovery from hard disk is the best way for a good working SP3.

There is one main difference between the two installation methods. With a original Surface recovery you need to initialize pen at beginning (there is that screen with the pen). After a clean install of course i hadn't that screen. And OneNote didnt open with pushing pen button -> i had to install an update by myself. Then it worked.

 

[malberttoo]

It wasnt a problem. The first thing in windows update was a firmware update so i had all drivers again. But as i said, i had some errors while working with it. Not bad. But in relation to now it was really faulty. Don't know if i am lucky now, but of course i am thinking now that a recovery from hard disk is the best way for a good working SP3.

There is one main difference between the two installation methods. With a original Surface recovery you need to initialize pen at beginning (there is that screen with the pen). After a clean install of course i hadn't that screen. And OneNote didnt open with pushing pen button -> i had to install an update by myself. Then it worked.

That's weird, because when I did my reset, it did do the pen pairing process at boot-up.

 

[iDatus]

just for others can someone do a grab of the partitions on a sp3. don't think it maters which one.
for example my alienware I have all these

and for the ones who have erased and started again what it looks like after.