I replaced the hard drive in my laptop with an SSD, and now I have the old HDD as an external drive connected via USB. I'm looking to free up space by removing the Windows installation on that HDD. I saw someone suggest renaming the Windows folder to 'windows.old' and then using Disk Cleanup to delete it. Can I do this without affecting my personal files, like my Documents or Desktop folders? I can't back up anything right now since I don't have another drive to use temporarily, so I'm not looking to format anything. Thanks for the help!
4 Answers
You can just go to the file explorer and delete the folders you don't need, like the Windows folder. No need to rename it first; simply right-click and delete it directly!
Manually deleting the Windows folder is fine, plus you should clear out any program files or hidden files. You may want to check for things like 'pagefile.sys' and 'hiberfil.sys' too, just to be thorough. But if you're not running anything from the HDD, it should be safe.
You could use a cloud service to back up your important files first, if you can. It's super important to keep your files safe, and once backed up, you could wipe the drive clean.
Before you go ahead, try booting your laptop with the old HDD disconnected to see if everything still works fine. It’s a good way to make sure you're not leaving anything important behind.
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