Soback Posted October 6, 2001 Report Share Posted October 6, 2001 I was just wondering what people thing about formating your HD every so often. I personaly do it once a year and have burned disks with my updated drivers and other things that I need. Is there any negative sides to formating HD, is it too often to do it once a year? Just your opinions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LordDavid Posted October 6, 2001 Report Share Posted October 6, 2001 I do it once every so often especially if I really screw up my system. It works wonders. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest $iLk Posted October 6, 2001 Report Share Posted October 6, 2001 I do it once every few days... at least I used to. Now I only do it once every few months... normally when I get my system set up the way I want it I usually format to set it up clean and better.However, just like floppies, I imagine if you do it HUNDREDS of times then it will become unusable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kush Posted October 6, 2001 Report Share Posted October 6, 2001 Once a year for me. I find that the Windows 9x OS takes about a year to get bogged down with crap. A clean format and re-install makes every thing work just fine. I really do hope that Win XP is everything it's supposed to be. Then, dare I say it, you may not need to re format your drive for a very long time. But, alas, only time will tell. I wouldn't worry about harming the drive itself. I've never ever heard about an over-formatted hard drive. I'm not saying it's impossible to over-format, I'm just saying it's not something you hear about too often. And once a year is NOT too often. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted October 6, 2001 Report Share Posted October 6, 2001 I format and redo my hard drive about once every 6 months or so, Win 98SE gets to be a dog, the installer and uninstaller leave all kinds of stuff in the registry so that pretty soon it take 10 minutes to boot the darn thing.Format it, and then scandisk to find and mark bad sectors, but I think Win98SE does that in it's installer anyway. Been longer then 6 months for me, it's about time I did it again... Thanks for the reminder!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Macon De'Witt Posted October 6, 2001 Report Share Posted October 6, 2001 I use Norton Ghost, I keep three images 1.Pristine (windows loaded and all my drivers) 2.Pristine+can't live without software like PKzip, Microsoft Office, Microsoft game voice, Adobe acrobat ect, and my email and network stuff all set up 3.Latest backup of how I am nowthe second image is burned onto a bootable CD so all there is too it is too boot from a DOS floppy do a fdisk /mbr about 6 times then boot from CD and restor it takes about 20 min to load a nice clean image and then all I have to do is install programs as I need them (games and stuff I would never image because its not so important to have them allways on the drive.If anyone has Norton Ghost and wants advice on how to set you puter up to do this let me know also IMHO you should allways have a 3 or 4 gig partitian that holds you OS and programs you would NEVER uninstall IE PKzip, MS Offics ect and keep all your games and crap outa this partition it reduces framantation of the OS and makes the whole ghost thing work right Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parias Posted October 6, 2001 Report Share Posted October 6, 2001 I only format when I need to.. which is like, once every year and a half or so Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fendi Posted October 6, 2001 Report Share Posted October 6, 2001 Remember when I had computer problems a week back when I upgraded my computer? I formated my hard drive because it started slowing down a lot (on an AMD 1.4 gig). It seems it was not my computer all along but AOL!!! The problem will only occur when I log off from AOL. I guess the only time for me to format my hard drive is when I have really serious problems. Apart from that all I ever do is defrag it once every few days.Then again I hardly keep my computers for longer thatn a year anyway. [ 10-06-2001: Message edited by: Fendi ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kush Posted October 6, 2001 Report Share Posted October 6, 2001 That bootable CD idea ROCKs. I don't know why I hadn't thought of it.Thanks for the tip! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parias Posted October 6, 2001 Report Share Posted October 6, 2001 quote:It seems it was not my computer all along but AOL!!!I find it difficult to believe that it took you that long to notice that AOL was the source of all your headaches and problems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fendi Posted October 6, 2001 Report Share Posted October 6, 2001 *Sigh* It's not my fault I'm stuck with AOL. It's basically the only unmetered ISP that won't cut me off after 2 hours. The only thing I'm hoping for now is for either cable or ADSL to get to my area. If not I might as well stay on AOL as it's the best of the worst. Besides where else can I get instant messages every hour with A/S/L in it. Just got back from NTL and I might get an engineer to come round soon. Yay!![ 10-06-2001: Message edited by: Fendi ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pugwash Posted October 6, 2001 Report Share Posted October 6, 2001 I like Macon De'Witt use Norton ghost and would recommend it. I also use Partition Magic to initially set up the Partitions and move resize them.I did have a problem a few months ago when I got a single bad cluster in the middle of an essential windows file that prevented windows from loading in any mode. Scandisk would not fix the problem no matter how it was run or with what setting luckily IBM disk utilities came to my rescue. If you have the time after a fdisk and or format I would recommend running scandisk or a similar utility. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emmett.hendrick Posted October 8, 2001 Report Share Posted October 8, 2001 I usually end up formatting my drive(s) about once a year to stop the O/S slow down. never though of ghosting the drive though. I'm getting windows XP and cd writer and a new video card soon though and will be doing a format then so I will ghost the drive and burn it to cd.Thanks for the idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cmdr Jeffery Eu Posted October 8, 2001 Report Share Posted October 8, 2001 I sincerely recommend burning yourself a bootable backup cd and formatting your HD every so often as my Win98SE tends give me the big blue screen of death after every 5 -6 install and uninstallation of games. Not too sure why it happens, but when it happens, brainwash the sucker!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emmett.hendrick Posted October 8, 2001 Report Share Posted October 8, 2001 just a quick Q, shot me if it is stupid but I'm not sure how to make a bootable cd. Tried dabling with it once but couldn't get it to work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joel Schultz Posted October 8, 2001 Report Share Posted October 8, 2001 I never format my HD, unless I am installing a new/upgraded OS, which I seldom do, or unless something drastic goes wrong, which has yet to occur. And my definition of drastic is pretty heavy: "drastic" is anything I can't fix or figure out within a reasonable time. The last problems that had me stumped was my PSU undervoltage problem (posted here about it, thanks guys), and my soundcard not being PCI 2.1 compliant (thanks goes to Turtle Beach tech support).Formatting is like giving up and surrendering. Which I refuse to do. Normally I just do regular defrag/scandisk maintenance.[ 10-08-2001: Message edited by: Joel Schultz ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soback Posted October 8, 2001 Author Report Share Posted October 8, 2001 To make a boot disk go to your START --> SETTINGS --> CONTROL PANEL. A window will open up, double click on "ADD/REMOVE PROGRAMS" another window will pop up with 3 tabs on the top of it, click the last tab which is to make a boot disk and follow the instructions from then on, and have a flopy ready. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emmett.hendrick Posted October 10, 2001 Report Share Posted October 10, 2001 Sorry SOBACK a bootable CD not a boot disk. we use bootable cds in here so I may query from some of the other techs here and expand my knowledge a bit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soback Posted October 10, 2001 Author Report Share Posted October 10, 2001 I would think that you can make a bootable cd by copying the information from the boot disk onto the cd and then going into your BIOS setting at start up and telling the computer to boot from the cd drive instead of the flopy. Maybe that helps. But someone with more knowledge on this would be better suited to explain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scrivener Posted October 10, 2001 Report Share Posted October 10, 2001 Well, how often I reformat my hard disk depends on what software I'm currently testing. But I keep a second HD (60Gb HD seperated intot wo 30Gb partitions) and keep all the stuff on my primary C drive (30Gb single-partition) backed up the second partition of my 60Gb HD, drive E. That way, when I really mess things up, I can just pull all the important junk off my E drive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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