Does Clean Install Wipe All Drives Exclusive

That's an interesting and important distinction to make.

By default, a clean installation of Windows or macOS is designed to target the system drive (usually your C: drive). It does not automatically reach out and "sanitize" your secondary D: drive, external backup disks, or secondary SSDs unless you manually intervene during the partition process. How a Clean Install Works does clean install wipe all drives exclusive

Guide: Does a Clean Install Wipe All Drives?

The Short Answer

A standard clean install (using Windows Media Creation Tool or a USB stick) is target-specific. It will only erase and partition the drive you explicitly select in the setup menu. It ignores all other drives connected to the computer, leaving their data intact. That's an interesting and important distinction to make

• By default, you choose a target drive/partition during installation. The installer formats only the selected partition(s).
• If you delete partitions on all drives manually in the installer’s drive-selection screen, those partitions will be wiped.
• Windows may place or update boot files on other attached drives with existing boot records if the installer detects them; this can modify other drives’ boot sectors (rare but possible).