Clean Installation
I am installing a fresh copy of Windows 11 and need to activate it with my product key.
Drive Selection
On the following screen, you’ll be prompted to choose the location where you want to install the operating system. At this stage, all the hard drives connected to your computer will be displayed, along with any existing partitions.
Each hard drive will be listed beginning with “Disk 0,” followed by “Disk 1,” “Disk 2,” and so on for additional drives.
To the right of each disk name, you’ll either see “Unallocated Space” which means that portion of the drive has not been formatted, or you’ll see one or more partitions labeled as “Partition 1,” “Partition 2,” etc., which indicates that the drive has already been formatted or partially used.
For a fresh installation, your drive should show as “Unallocated Space.” Simply select that drive and click “Next” to begin installing Windows.
If you're reinstalling Windows, your drive will likely show several existing partitions, such as “Partition 1,” “Partition 2,” and more. This is because the Windows installation process creates multiple partitions by default. In this case, you’ll need to delete all existing partitions on the drive until the space is shown as unallocated. Once that’s done, you can proceed by clicking “Next.”
If your system has more than one hard drive, be careful to select the correct one. This is especially important if one of the drives contains data you wish to keep. Deleting a partition will erase all data stored on it. Make sure to back up any important files before starting the installation.
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