How to reinstall Windows 10 without losing data

Sometimes, we may find that our Windows10 runs very slowly. In most cases, the culprits are the file junk, defragmentation, etc. If the issue persists even you have tried to clean and defragment hard drives, you are supposed to reinstall Windows 10. Reinstalling Windows is also helpful for fixing other issues such as blue screen and system crashes.

Tip: It’s recommended to use the free and professional program – MiniTool ShadowMaker to create a system image to restore our system when it crashes.

Before getting started to reinstall Windows 10, we need to do the following preparations:

1. Prepare the Windows installation CD/DVD disc or USB flash drive. If you don’t have a CD or USB, please follow this post – How to Reinstall Windows 10 without CD/USB Easily (3 Skills) to learn more about how to reinstall Windows 10.
2. Since there’s a risk of losing data during the process of reinstalling Windows system, you had better back up the important data on the Windows computer in advance.

Back up important data

To back up your important data, MiniTool ShadowMaker is recommended. It is a user-friendly program to protect our computers and data. If you want to clone the OS from HDD to SSD without data loss, this tool can also give you a hand. Below is how to use it to back up data.

Step 1: Install and Launch MiniTool ShadowMaker to enter its main interface.

Step 2: After choosing the backup source and destination, you can click “Back up Now” to start the backup process.

After backing up important data, let’s proceed to reinstall Windows 10 without losing data.

How to reinstall Windows 10

Case 1: Reinstall Windows 10 on a normal PC

If the computer can boot normally, we can use the “Reset this PC” feature of Windows 10 for the reinstallation. Below are the detailed steps:

Step 1: Open the Settings application by pressing the + I keys. Then, navigate to the Update & Security part and click it.

Step 2: Click the “Recovery” tab on the left panel. Then, click the “Get Started” option under the “Reset this PC” part.

Step 3: Next, on the Choose an option interface, we can choose “Keep my file” or “Remove everything”. To avoid data loss, we should choose the “Keep my files” option.

Step 4: Click Next to continue. Then, we should click “Reset” in the Ready to reset this PC interface. Then, wait for the resetting process to be completed.

After that, we will reinstall Windows 10 without losing data successfully.

Case 2: Reinstall Windows 10 on a PC that isn’t working properly

If the computer can’t boot normally, you should use the Windows installation CD/DVD disc or USB flash drive to reinstall Windows 10. This part will introduce how to do that.

Step 1: Since our PC can’t boot normally, you should connect the USB drive/DVD disc to another PC that can boot normally.

Step 2: Then, download the Windows 10 Media Creation tool from the Microsoft official website on the working PC to create a bootable USB flash drive.

Step 3: Run this tool, and you need to choose “Upgrade this PC now” or “Create installation media for another PC and USB flash drive”. We should choose the latter.

Step 4: Insert the USB drive/DVD disc to the PC that can’t boot normally. Press a certain key (depends on our computer brand) to enter the BIOS and change the boot order to boot the PC from the USB or disc.

Step 5: After the PC boot successfully, you can continue to set up our PC. Here, we need to choose a language to install and choose the time and currency time. Then, choose the keyboard or input method and click “Next” to continue.

Step 6: In the next interface, you just need to click “Install Now” to continue. After that, complete the setup configurations by following the instructions on the screen.

Step 7: When the installation is finished, you can log into it with an account.

When you are asked to enter the product key for Windows activation during the installation, you can choose to skip it and finish it after you reinstall Windows 10 successfully.

Final words

To sum up, here is all the information on how to reinstall Windows 10 without losing data. If we don’t know how to do that, you can refer to the instructions in this post. To avoid data loss, we also recommend you to make a full backup for your important data prior to reinstalling Windows 10.

Story by Daisy Lau