A clean install will wipe your files and installed programs but you can also reinstall Windows on top of the existing one which won’t delete existing files.
Periodically making a clone or an image of the drive is also a good thing to do. I prefer doing that rather than backing up files since I can plug a cloned drive into the computer and be up and running in a few minutes with no need to install the o/s.
If you haven’t wiped it out yet, you should be able to get the data (based on the description). If you have a place to put the files, a USB stick, and another computer you can use a “Live” USB (something like Ubuntu as suggested above) to get access to the files and copy them to a safe place.
Anything important on there you need?
I’m happy to help walk you through some of that. This is what I do for a living (well… mostly servers and networks these days, but I do occasionally assist the “Desktop Support” guys)
yea you need to back up personal files before upgrading. Also your chrome bookmarks. Maybe registry files of your most used files say on Media Player Classic or bookmarks on pdf/comic reader etc… Also back-up your passwords stored on the PC etc…Windows sometimes does a nice upgrade and keeps old files, but when the updates or patches go back they do a “total refresh” and don’t save your files.
For the Chrome stuff, if you sign in with a Google account you can sync all the bookmarks/history/saved passwords/etc. Not a bad idea to get that going if you are friendly with Google.
You can use OneDrive or Google Drive to keep some of the more important stuff synced to the cloud in case you have any future issues.
I agree re: using third party software to update drivers… Windows Update on Windows 10 seems to grab the drivers for almost any device automatically, and I tend to use that for everything except maybe fancier graphics adapters or highly specialized hardware (things like Panoramic X-ray machines, old dot matrix printers, etc).
If your computer is a Dell/Lenovo/etc you can usually get their software to install and update the drivers. These are trustworthy, but I’ve had mixed results with nag screens and advertising on some of those.
Get your backups running automatically for the important stuff, and check them at least once in a while. For anything critical, I recommend the “3-2-1” strategy: 3 copies of the data, 2 different storage mediums (disk, cloud, DVD, tape, stone tablets, etc), 1 copy off-site.
Since you are on Windows, you can write a batch script to run a robocopy job on specific folders. you could even use the task scheduler to run this automatically. These tools are built into Windows and work well. TONS of info on the internet about how to get them working because they’ve been around for a long time. I could probably mock up a script to help you get started. It is pretty simple once you have a template.