SG Broadband Community

Hey there folks,

Over Christmas break I want to reformat my hard drive, any suggestions about making it painless?

Would you recommend saving all the pertinent stuff like drivers to a partition, and reformatting the rest?

Or saving everything to CDRW, then reformatting the entire thing?

And when I do reformatt, is it better to put Win98 in its own partition and make a backup copy? Then next time instead of reformatting I can just go back to that "pristine" copy. Would that work?

Yeah, I format once a month(usually) and I back up all of my drivers,computer name, and hard to find software on CDR beforehand.

As long as you have a working bootdisk, you shouldn't have too many problems.

I have ran into situations in the past where I formatted without backing up my drivers, and of course @home was down all night. After one night of SuperVGA I learned my lesson.


hehe. It shouldn't be too hard for ya though..

[*] Backup important apps
[*] Locate/Make a bootdisk
[*] Boot to disk
[*] choose cd-rom support
[*] slap the new OS in your cdrom
[*] go to C:/ prompt
[*] type C: format /all
[*] When the cleansing is through,
[*] Roll a fatty, and type D:
[*] Then type setup.exe (d:/setup.exe)

This is the only restore feature I use..

Clean Install.

Thanks a lot Messiah.

I already have step 9 down pretty well (not in Humboldt for nothing). Thanks for the advice.

One thing though. Why do you reformat so often? Isn't once a month a bit excessive, or are the benefits actually that great? Thanks

Well, once a month is excessive.

The benefit is having a non-fragmented clean registry, and of course a fresh start.

The reason why I format so often, is simply habit. I learned windows by hacking it, and I have damaged sooo many system files in my time, that it's only a natural reaction to start over. Silly to some, but it's how I work.

How often do the rest of you format?

i usually fdisk evry 6 mnths

Never. I have too much stuff that I don't want to disturb.

I have one computer that is my beater if I feel the urge to tinker, it gets the greif. I have probably reformatted 6 times in the last year.

Format? Only once to get everything pristine and then I just ghost my drives and I'm done in under an hour.

Originally posted by Paft
How often do the rest of you format?

only when i mess something up real bad, my old HP machine went almost 3 years on the original factory install with 98se on her

messiah wrote:Yeah, I format once a month(usually) and I back up all of my drivers,computer name, and hard to find software on CDR beforehand.

As long as you have a working bootdisk, you shouldn't have too many problems.

I have ran into situations in the past where I formatted without backing up my drivers, and of course @home was down all night. After one night of SuperVGA I learned my lesson.


hehe. It shouldn't be too hard for ya though..

[*] Backup important apps
[*] Locate/Make a bootdisk
[*] Boot to disk
[*] choose cd-rom support
[*] slap the new OS in your cdrom
[*] go to C:/ prompt
[*] type C: format /all
[*] When the cleansing is through,
[*] Roll a fatty, and type D:
[*] Then type setup.exe (d:/setup.exe)

This is the only restore feature I use..

Clean Install.

Wow Messiah...

This is going to be my first time and that's because I have no choice. Can I be given a few pointers? I'm going to install Windows XP Home Edition (full version) and am nervous about it. I'm pretty good with computers. Help people at work all day, but since it's my own home computer, i'm a little nervous. Would appreciate your help.

Once a month to format a computer is little bit way out of line, Maybe every 6 months but come on all you got to do is defrag your hard drive once every week or two.

Solarus wrote:Wow Messiah...

This is going to be my first time and that's because I have no choice. Can I be given a few pointers? I'm going to install Windows XP Home Edition (full version) and am nervous about it. I'm pretty good with computers. Help people at work all day, but since it's my own home computer, i'm a little nervous. Would appreciate your help.

XP is simple to do. Boot with the CD in the drive...hit any key to boot with it.
F8 to agree to the user agreement...delete the existing partition, and then hit enter on the empy one you have created and install...its quite simple. Just make sure you have your Ethernet drivers handy in case you need to get internet access to download any other drivers before hand..Get Spybot, Adaware, spysweeper , spywareguard. spywareblaster, and an antivirus and then u can surf away

Pie

Create an unattended install.
Start it and forget it

So how many people failed to see the last post date of 15+ months ago before posting in here?

Or am I just being picky and obnoxious tonight.

LOL I noticed, but since there were new responses I thought, what the hell...

poolking wrote:So how many people failed to see the last post date of 15+ months ago before posting in here?

Or am I just being picky and obnoxious tonight.

Yeah but Solarus must have came in off a search engine and made a post so I figured Id reply to help out


Pie

thepieman wrote:Yeah but Solarus must have came in off a search engine and made a post so I figured Id reply to help out


Pie

Thanks Pie....I'm at a PC at work because I cannot access the internet at home and I was searching for help with reformatting hard drive and saw post. Did I upset anyone? If I did, my apologies, but I'm desperate here. I work at home also and I need my PC. I didn't bother too look at dates. I've never reformatted a hard drive before.

Only when necessary.

Solarus wrote:Thanks Pie....I'm at a PC at work because I cannot access the internet at home and I was searching for help with reformatting hard drive and saw post. Did I upset anyone? If I did, my apologies, but I'm desperate here. I work at home also and I need my PC. I didn't bother too look at dates. I've never reformatted a hard drive before.

No not at all. Dont worry about it. If you need help feel free to PM me. Im a Tech with 15+ years experience...I can help you if needed.


Pie