win 8.1 clean install usb

I prep'd for it so I'm going to do it, dammit!

I prepared on and off for a week: researched, went through the steps and what to expect in my head, learned possible snags and their fixes (from other people's first-hand accounts), prep'd what I needed to use, backed up drivers and my files, wrote down my key and printed out my step-by-step notes. It took a while but I was ready (and pumped).

August 5, 2015: Clean install of Win 8.1 via bootable USB. Success!

There were only 2 things that my notes didn't cover:

There were multiple one-time boot options on my mobo (press F12 to get to this boot menu on GA-A75M-UD2H). There were 4 choices for USB. Obviously, USB-Zip and USB-CDROM were out. I thought, "Oh, USB-HDD but what is this USB-FDD?" [Six minutes later...] Ok, not FDD. Should've went with my gut and picked HDD the first time but no harm done and lesson learned. Uhm, yeah, pick USB-HDD.

NOTE: The bootable USB was easily created with Window's official media creation tool for 8.1 - the whole process of downloading and creating this took me 3 hours so I'm glad I made it in advance (and before they take it off their site).

It told me to "Please unplug..." (the USB). Weh? Funny no one mentioned this but sure, I did what I was told... dundundun...

"Getting Ready..." "Personalizing..." Hello, 8.1!

So quick and easy, I couldn't believe it. That was it? What, even with me going through custom settings, it was less than 30 minutes? Holy...


Some minutes in, it automatically ran a drivers-check and the AMD HD display was installed so I didn't need to run the chipset one I had as backup. Everything was ok. I only manually installed the Realtek audio driver to boost the volume (I also had this driver backed up during prep).

I have so much free space now!

I turned off fast startup too before that could give me problems.