Is it okay to reinstall Windows 10 with drivers/utilities manually

[Sarbashis]

Somehow I'm not able to reset Windows 10. I get the 'Could not find recovery environment' error. I am being told by HP customer care to order a new set of recovery disks but the problem is, I'm in the US right now & my unit was purchased from India. US customer care won't bother to help. And apart from the hassle with getting someone to receive it in India & ship it to me, I'm not really keen on spending money for something which can be done manually.

I have done full OS re-installations before. The way I see it, this link https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10startfresh will enable me to reinstall Windows 10 with proper activation. Then I'll install the downloaded drivers from HP's website. I don't mind losing some "paid" apps like CyberLink PowerDVD, Free Wi-Fi etc.

I want to know if this process will work properly or not. Is there something I'm missing out?

[Huffer]

Not at all. Should work fine. If you can get to the contents of the hard drive somehow all your drivers and original app installers are saved in a C:\swsetup folder that you could use for reinstallation. Booting the system from a Linux Live type thumb drive or DVD would allow you to copy and paste off that folder to a storage folder for reuse. 

[Sarbashis]

Thank you so much! Yes I can boot into Windows right now so I'll save that entire folder. Is there anything else I should preserve from the existing installation which can help later?

[Huffer · Accepted solution]

Obviously any documents, pictures, music you want to keep. Other than that the swsetup folder should have all your drivers and pre-installed software. 

If this is "the Answer" please click "Accept as Solution" to help others find it. 

[Sarbashis]

One more thing, will the Windows re-install change my partition setup? I have a data partition on E: apart from C: & 😧 (recovery).

[Huffer]

It does not have to. When the hard drive layout comes up on the installer leave the current E:\ drive intact, and remove other partitions to allow Windows to set up its own. You may have some permission issues on the files in there after the reinstall but these can be overcome.