Reformatting advice

[cantona]

Hi

So my PC's almost 4 years old now and I want to reformat it to clean off the junk and start from scratch. I never have reformatted a PC before so I am looking to you lads for advice. Heres my questions:

1) What exactly do I need to do? lol
2) When I have reformatted what drivers should I make sure I update straight away?
3) How long does it take? (120gb HD)
4) Any tips?

Cheers,
Cantona

PS. How often do you reformat?

 

[darroll]

Before you do a re-format, make sure you back up your data and have the drivers to run your PC.
To do a long format usually takes about an hour.
I never format unless I really have a worm or real corruption.

 

[dannywhittle]

yh i did this to get windows xp on my dell laptop from windows vista is really easy just back up everything like i did on my external hdd and then i inserted my windows xp disk and put the os on again which involved formatting it and then installed it and restore stuff you want!

danny

 

[Tommy Boy]

Hi

So my PC's almost 4 years old now and I want to reformat it to clean off the junk and start from scratch. I never have reformatted a PC before so I am looking to you lads for advice. Heres my questions:

1) What exactly do I need to do? lol
2) When I have reformatted what drivers should I make sure I update straight away?
3) How long does it take? (120gb HD)
4) Any tips?

Cheers,
Cantona

PS. How often do you reformat?

If you are reformatting and installing XP it's easy as pie to do. Just boot with the xp disc in the drive and go. It'll ask you if you want to format the hard drive.

Reformatting really should be a last option. Is there something wrong with your pc? Is it running slow? If so you can post threads here and the great members here will help you.

 

[cavemangrinder]

Well, being that its almost 4 years into it, I think a reformat would be the most beneficial option as opposed to cleaning and stuff like that. My rig has had xp on it for just a little over a year and I am gonna reformat as soon as I get a bigger external drive, just to have a fresh clean install again.

 

[jo5h]

4 years without a reformat.. damn that is impressive, I'm lucky to go 8 months. Anyways here is a decent guide if its your first time.
http://redchaos.wordpress.com/tutorials/how-to-format-your-hard-drive-wpictures/

If you don't have your chipset drivers or any other drivers on a cd (gfx, sound, etc) I would suggest downloading them and burning them before you reformat. Once you get back online,do a few windows updates, get a anti virus running, followed by more windows updates.

 

[cavemangrinder]

The only thing I'd like to add to that is to install the antivirus before you connect to the internet, so you dont go a period without basic protection.

 

[Hid_Enigma]

After backing up your files and before you are reading to insert you OS Disk I would suggest using FDISK (a low level format). Especially after 4 years without formatting this way you wipe everything. Also if I go at least a year without formatting I also use the fdisk mbr command to delete the MBR then install WIndows/ Linux. These are the steps I take before reinstalling an OS

 

[cantona]

thanks for the replies lads.

I was wondering should I unplug or my peripheral gear when reformating (eg. printers)?

 

[Atomic Rooster]

No need to go through having to unplug stuff. Just reformat and go. . .