Friend hasn't reformatted in almost 5 years

[BigJ]

Originally posted by: Feldenak

Originally posted by: BigJ

Originally posted by: Feldenak

Originally posted by: Eeezee

Originally posted by: compuwiz1
PC performance has nothing to do with reformatting, except for to n00bs. They seem to think that's the fix all for everything. I have not reformatted my main comp in almost 5 years. It works fine.

It's essentially a quick fix for removing all hidden malware and keeping your OS organized.

I dare you to reformat today and see if things run any differently. I assure you, it's good practice to reformat frequently. N00bz don't reformat.

Are you retarded? A quick fix? If I went to reformat it would be anything but quick. Reformatting is only necessary for people that don't know how to do a little preventative maintenance. I haven't reformatted my home machine since I built it and it runs just fine.

It is a relatively quick fix compared to the time it takes if you can't boot up a computer due to OS being corrupted, try to fix it by booting into the Recovery Console and performing various routines, finally get into the system, look at the overwhelming amount of viruses and spyware on the computer, have to boot into Safe-Mode, which doesn't prevent all of the spyware crap from loading up, and then finally getting the computer back into shape.

That's just an extreme example, but it really is the quick and lazy man's fix to software problems.

Bolded the part you apparently missed.

How are you supposed to perform preventative maitenance when people bring you their computers you've never seen before?

 

[LeadMagnet]

Originally posted by: Eeezee
He was smart enough to have a second hard drive that he used to keep backups of all of his important stuff, so formatting wasn't even a big deal. I finally convinced him that he'll get a nice performance boost. He was getting blue screens on bootup every now and then. I told him it was time. He's been much happier with his system's performance. It's a Dell 1.7GHz P4 with 256MB of ram and a Geforce2 MX 64MB graphics card.

I reformat about once every 3-6 months. It keeps things running smooth and doesn't take more than 30 minutes to an hour if you know what you're doing. This includes download time for latest updates and drivers My friend was deathly afraid of reformatting, afraid that it'd screw up his computer even more, until I told him how often I reformat.

Anyone else come across users that let their computers rot for years and years without a good tech support guy around to keep them clean? I'm sure there are some good stories lingering around here

GHOST.EXE is a wonderful thing - take a nice image of your OS after you get it the way you want it, and it cuts back restore time to 10 min

 

[imported_smilingcrow]

Originally posted by: tfinch2

Originally posted by: Ausm

Originally posted by: tfinch2
Why do you noobs reformat so much? I've never reformatted before for maintenance, only to go from Windows 2000 to Windows XP, and that was almost 2 years ago.

I don't know any power user that doesn't have to reformat at least once/year

Ausm

LOL

Are you one of those IT guys that reformat or image for every single problem?

Case fan or wireless mouse batteries died? Step aside, I'm a POWER USER! REFORMAT THAT SH!T!

LOL.

I?m surprised that a number of people are stating that they only defragment their disks every 6 months or so. I thought that they?d be seriously fragmented way before that!

For those of you that want to explore the infected corners of the web for warez/porn etc, may I suggest that you use browse within a VMWare virtual machine or similar. Create a fresh VMWare O/S installation and keep it unused. Make a copy of it, which is a simple folder copy process, and then do what you like within that VM until it dies. Delete the infected/broken VM, copy your original VM and start all over again.
VMWare is useful in many other ways, but in this way it works as a sort of software condom Just don?t give your VM unlimited access to all your drives though.

I expect an installation to last 3 to 5 years and would be disappointed if it didn?t. I?m happy to swap out motherboards with the same installation, but I tend not to upgrade from one version of Windows to another preferring a fresh install. That?s probably being a bit cautious though, although it?s not something that happens very often.

I do very occasionally find issues that I have a hard time troubleshooting or fixing. Since I create a system image with Ghost which I can use as a last resort, if I hit a very obscure problem there is a point when I think it might be easier and quicker to restore from Ghost; it?s not always an obvious call. I don?t mind putting the time in learning about Windows issues when I can reuse that information. But spending hours troubleshooting an issue that is related to a rare piece of hardware is another thing.

 

[magomago]

I'm going to have to agree that the whole reformat evry 3-6 months is RIDICULOUS. I USED to do that with win98, only because it got into BSOD loops often (Which I realized later came from instability of my processor! AMD and your 95Mhz FSB B.S. because you couldn't hit 100! Lol those were the days...Had to underclock to 500 to get stability). But since I moved to win2k I rarely do that.

Rebooting so often is NOT a good practice, and shows that you are loading spyware on your pc (stop using IE would be a good start), beleive in a placebo effect, or just stink at computers.

I do think reformatting has its time and place...but claiming you do it three to six months for a preformance boost is ridiculous.

Sometimes I think it is because of errors and BSODs that I got good at using windows beceause I ended up repeating the same task a million times so when I help people on the phone its esay for me say stuff like "right on my computer, in the tabs there will be something called BLA, in BLA there will be a button called device manager, from there click on....." just because I myself have done it so much Whereas in Linux I typically don't have that problem...

but I reinstalled win98 so much, that even though I stopped using it in 2000, I still have the CDKEY memorized and fresh in my head

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: Eeezee

Originally posted by: Looney

Originally posted by: Eeezee

Originally posted by: compuwiz1
PC performance has nothing to do with reformatting, except for to n00bs. They seem to think that's the fix all for everything. I have not reformatted my main comp in almost 5 years. It works fine.

It's essentially a quick fix for removing all hidden malware and keeping your OS organized.

ie if you don't know how to do anything else, reformat.

I dare you to reformat today and see if things run any differently. I assure you, it's good practice to reformat frequently. N00bz don't reformat.

Speak for yourself. I'm building a new system almost every couple of months (not for myself), and over xmas, built 5, so i know what a new install should run like... and none of my systems are any slower than these new installs.

Good practice to reformat frequently LOLOL

ie Looney needs to work on his English comprehension skillz

Eeezee shouldn't be offering advice to people if he doesn't know what he's doing.

 

[AdamK47]

I overheard that a person can be cured of cancer if they stick their head into a live hornets nest.

 

[us3rnotfound]

Originally posted by: AgaBoogaBoo
My current install of XP is about 3 years old, not having any issues either

bullsh1t

 

[Shenkoa]

I reformated recently, I have my drive in 2 partition plus I have a 250GB in a ESATA Vantec Nexstar 3.

 

[cavemanmoron]

i was given a computer from a coworker, it had Win 95 on it.

He said it was acting up. :Q

 

[mrSHEiK124]

Haven't formatted this since I built it December 2nd. The rig before it was formatted but once in the year and a half I had it, motherboard replacement made Windows act retarded. Formatting is for teh n00bs.

 

[ShowdOWN]

ghost is the friend of a constant reformatter.

 

[The Batt?sai]

i'll do a fresh install once i backup my 350 gigs of stuff and install my opty 165 and uli board :-D with watercooing

 

[JohnCU]

oh my god you people are arguing over formatting...who the hell cares if i format or don't format.

 

[PhoenixOrion]

I haven't reformatted my main box in over 2 years.

I do have a test box that I reformat/re-install for running benchmarks.

 

[xtknight]

I don't reformat. I just delete \Program Files, \WINDOWS, \Documents and Settings (after backing up some important stuff), reinstall, and defragment. Accomplishes the same thing, except without the trouble of copying ALL your data back again. My Linux installation does not get reinstalled at all.

 

[imported_smilingcrow]

Originally posted by: xtknight
I don't reformat. I just delete \Program Files, \WINDOWS, \Documents and Settings (after backing up some important stuff), reinstall, and defragment. Accomplishes the same thing, except without the trouble of copying ALL your data back again. My Linux installation does not get reinstalled at all.

It?s not quite the same thing. If you need to reinstall Windows because you can?t boot into it at all, you are going to loose any DATA that you have on your Windows partition, IF you reformat when applying a fresh install. And in such a situation it is wise to reformat. The moral is, KEEP ALL YOUR DATA IN A SEPARATE PARTITION(S). This is also essential if you use Ghost or similar, as it will overwrite the partition that it installs to.

 

[Finalnight]

I used to reformat every 2 months when I was a noob, now I typically rotate it about every 6-8 months (only for mobo upgrades).

 

[HamburgerBoy]

I'm surprised at the amount of people that reformat every several months to keep their computer running quick. I had a format that lasted for two years until I decided to reformat. For some odd reason, almost every format after that one has had some problem with it requiring me (up until recently) to reformat every couple weeks.

 

[Fardringle]

I have an NT4 machine that not only hasn't been reformatted since June 2000, it has only been rebooted about two dozen times that I am aware of since it was put into service, and the majority of those were because of power outages before the owner could be talked into buying a decent UPS, or to upgrade hardware on the machine. (It's even a DELL - OMG how could a Dell possibly not die in three days? )

My mother-in-law has a P2-300 desktop running Windows 95 that was installed in 1996 (I believe) and even though the hardware is slow, it still works perfectly fine for what she needs it to do, and with simple basic maintenance, it has never needed to be reformatted.

There are definitely times when it makes sense to reformat a machine, such as the cases where the system is messed up so badly that it would take longer to fix the problem that it would to just do a clean install, but those cases are pretty rare and are usually caused by the person using the machine, NOT by the operating system. Anyone that NEEDS to format their system frequently is either clueless or too lazy to fix routine problems (as has been stated already), or else needs to stop installing warez and other untrusted software that is practically guaranteed to screw up the system.

My main machine at home only has a 6-month-old install of XP, but that's only because it's an entirely new system and the old computer it replaced is still in use with the existing licensed install of XP so cloning/copying that install to this new machine wasn't really an option. However, XP was installed on that old machine around February of 2002 (I forget the exact date) and I never once had to reformat it. I had to do regular maintenance on it of course, and even had to do a repair install (not a reformat) once when I was playing around in the Registry, deleting keys just to see what they would do, and corrupted Windows beyond the point where I wanted to try and manually undo things, but otherwise that computer is still running just as fast as it did when it was new four years ago.

 

[0roo0roo]

i have a ghost image ready but every 3 months is a bit much. windows is pretty stable if u don't go installing malware on purpose or something.

 

[bluestrobe]

I install and uninstall a lot of games and software and find at about 9-12 months it would be better to format than to go and clean registry keys and such.

 

[tiejiba]

People, why not just ghost it when everything is working perfectly.
No need for reformatting.

 

[blckgrffn]

LOL...

Real IT people know their time is worth so much more than sitting around and mucking with an OS when a reimage can take 15 minutes. Heck, I can do complete re-install with apps on one of my main boxs in about an hour without games. That costs $35 at my going rate. Spending hours tracking down a problem is not worth it at all.

Mostly this pertains to fixing client computers. If any of you out there have dealt with uber-nasty spyware infections, you know what I am talking about But when I install a new mobo, it is time for windows to get freshened.

I only ever keep a main gaming box together for about 6 months, so the whole reformatting thing is usually a moot point for me...

 

[Vic]

My last Win2k install lasted a little over 3 years. No problems at all, but then I'm strict about maintaining my rigs. It ran (and benchmarked) just as well or better after 3 years as it did the very first day. The only reason I finally reformatted last fall was because I got a new cpu and mainboard.

 

[NaOH]

Originally posted by: bluestrobe
I install and uninstall a lot of games and software and find at about 9-12 months it would be better to format than to go and clean registry keys and such.

WinASO...Perfectdisk. FTW

I do a lot of video editing and installing/uninstalling games and software. I never reformat until I get a new mobo and cpu which is every couple of years.