Sometimes, users realize their files were only on the desktop (C: drive), which is wiped. Even if the secondary drives are safe, your primary user profile data is gone. How to Ensure "Exclusive" Wiping

If you want to be 100% certain that your secondary drives remain untouched, follow the rule:

Before booting from your USB, physically disconnect the SATA or power cables from your secondary hard drives. If they aren't connected, the installer cannot touch them.

This is where your OS lives. To do a "clean" install, you typically delete the partitions on this drive, turning it into "Unallocated Space." This wipes the data on that specific drive .

If you have three identical 1TB Samsung SSDs, it is incredibly easy to delete a partition on the wrong drive. The installation media doesn't always label them as "Games" or "Work"; it labels them as Drive 0, Drive 1, and Drive 2 .

Your other drives (Games, Photos, Backups) will appear in this same list. As long as you do not delete or format the partitions associated with those drives, their data remains 100% intact. The Risks: Where Things Can Go Wrong

If you use the "Reset this PC" feature within Windows settings rather than a USB boot drive, you may see an option to "Clean all drives." If you toggle this on, Windows will wipe every connected disk.