How big should USB Stick be to create restore

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi, Tim:

A 16 GB USB flash drive will be fine. 

You only need a 4 GB flash drive for the Media Creation Tool file.

Should you format the 7,200 RPM HDD first?

Perhaps so. 

That way the notebook will not have to figure out what hard drive to boot from--meaning that if you leave W10 installed on the 7200 RPM HDD, I think it will only boot from that one regardless.

[tcr333]

Disk managment

[tcr333]

Do I delete all the paritions?I haven't done a fresh install since the days of Win XP. Back then you had a dos propmt that let manage your partitions. Does the win 10 install tool have such tools?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

That is up to you.

I delete all partions on the hard drive, and create one large partition.

You will have the option to delete any partitions, after you click on the Install Now button at the first W10 installation screen.  You can choose which one(s) to delete.

See this link for the typical installation routine...you just click on the Delete option shown in the step 9 picture.

http://www.intowindows.com/how-to-clean-install-windows-10-from-usb-dvd/

[tcr333]

Thanks for all your advice Paul. I'll try a clean win install once the USB pendrive arrives.

Regarding drivers should I just use the default drivers that windows comes with or should I get the drivers from the HP website.

I know one of the advantages to do a clean install is to get rid of all the bloat. What drivers do you install off the HP site and do you intsall in them in any particular order?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Anytime.

Glad to be of assistance.

It has always been my experience that a bloatware clean install works much better than the factory image.

I would definitely install the HP drivers from your PC's support page.

Only some of them are recommended to be installed in a specific order.

1. Intel chipset installation utility -- install and restart the PC.

2. Intel HD graphics driver, install and restart the PC.

3. Nvidia graphics driver, install and restart the PC.

4. Audio, install and restart the PC.

[tcr333]

Thanks. As far as i'm aware my laptop doesn't use the intel on board grpahics as it has a g-sync panel. Should I still install the Intel grpahics though?

And will I be better installing Nvidias own GFX directly  instead of the ones from the HP website through the geforce experience app?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

Yes, I believe you have to install the Intel graphics driver because your notebook has the Intel/Nvidia switchable graphics.

You can tell for sure by going to the device manager, click to expand the Display adapters device manager category.

If your notebook has the switchable graphics you will see both an Intel HD and a Nvidia graphics adapter listed there.

If you only see the Nvidia, then you won't need to install the Intel HD graphics driver.

If you see both, your notebook is going to run off the Intel graphics most of the time unless the graphics demand is too much for the Intel graphics, and then the notebook dynamically switches to the Nvidia graphics.

You should be able to use the latest nVidia graphics driver directly from nvidia.

[tcr333]

Paul I want to thank you for all your advice and very quick responses. My new USB drive arrived and I installed using the Win 10 download and everything went through smoothly. 

The laptop is lightning fast now. Getting the 1tb hard drive sorted with all the paritions was a bit of a nightmare but I got it sorted using WD acronis.

I had also ordered an additional 16gb ram to replace the 8gb in my machine as prior to the SSD install judging by how my laptop stuttered after coming out of a game I though RAM might be an issue. with the SSD installed windows is ready to go as soon as I come out of a resource heavy game like GTA V or Forza 3. 

I'm wondering if I've wasted my money with the additional RAM and should just leave it at 8gb. I haven't installed the RAM yet.

Regardless many thanks again Paulfor all your help.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

I'm glad to read that everything went well and your PC is running very nicely.

I guess it is up to you if you want to return the memory or not, but IMO, 16 GB is where you want to be nowadays with all the memory hungry apps and the W10 operating system.

Enjoy!

Paul