A new install of Windows is the installation method you choose when installing Windows to an empty hard drive. After you replace a damaged hard drive in your computer or when you're building a new PC from scratch, a new install of Windows is what you'll need to do.
Since a new install of Windows is only performed on an already empty hard drive, there's no previous operating system to worry about and no data to back up, making it a relatively simple process.
The individual steps involved in completing a new install of Windows can be quite different depending on the operating system you happen to be using:
- How To Perform a New Install of Windows 7
- How To Perform a New Install of Windows Vista
- How To Perform a New Install of Windows XP
As I mentioned above, with a new install there's nothing to backup like with a Windows clean install since you won't be overwriting any information.
