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Windows XP: Reasons behind reformatting your hard drive and reinstalling Windows OS?
- 8/21/09 2:39 PM
Reformatting HDD and reinstalling windows.
by draghosh - 8/16/09 6:05 PM In reply to: Reasons behind reformatting your hard drive and reinstalling Windows OS? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Hi Stephanie,
Regarding your query I would like to state that you do not need to reformat your hard drive at a regular intervals until and unless you face a serious problem which you might think because of windows getting corrupt. First you should partition your hard disk so that you have a separate dedicated partition where you only install windows and other softwares. Keep all your important documents in the other partitions. You can now install windows and all other necessary softwares the first time and then use the machine for a few days to see if all are working fine. Then use R-Dive Image or Acronis Backup and Recovery bootable CD (I would prefer Acronis for it seems to be faster)to make an image of the hard drive where you have installed windows and other softwares and save the image in another drive. If ever you feel the need for reinstalling windows again you can simply copy the image with the respective software (R-Drive or Acronis) CD back to the original drive. Copying back takes about 20 minutes and you are done with your perfectly working windows with all the installed softwares in just a fraction of the time you would need to install a fresh copy of windows along with all the other softwares. So no need for formatting regularly.
Thanks,
Arindam
Reformat
by xpdeg - 8/17/09 10:33 AM In reply to: Reformatting HDD and reinstalling windows. by draghoshOk, all of this post somewhat seem to be repetitive. Now to a twist on it, I have another question.
Is there a limit on how many times a HDD could be reformatted?
Reformating Hard Drives
by woodboy - 8/16/09 6:58 PM In reply to: Reasons behind reformatting your hard drive and reinstalling Windows OS? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Reformatting a hard drive isn't necessary unless you have tried cleaning the OS up, i.e. temp files, IE temp files, Downloaded Program files etc. I have found through years of experience that it is faster to format the hard drive than to clean it up and try a windows Reinstall. Windows will copy the same errors over and you will be left disappointed if you try a re-install.
I my experience, a fresh clean fast OS is indispensable. Talking things out of the start menu, via regedit, and msconfig is the most important thing. The tray icons that windows XP loves to hide by default are generally dragging the system resources down. Long loading times result and long shutdown times as well.
By default, things are installed and they seem to have a need to be in the background running, even when we aren't aware. Control Alt Delete will let you know what is running in the background. Quick Time, Java and many other programs seem to have to be in the start up menu. You can edit the preferences to keep them at bay.
I think the rule is if Your System isn't broke then you don't have to Fix it. The disadvantage is that once you reformat the drive, every program has to be re-installed. Again, this can be a good thing if they don't behave properly or seem sluggish. OH Yeah and the most important thing is backing ALL of your data up, as it will be gone completely.
My best reformat was with XP HOME, with five users. It had a bunch of Viruses. I managed to take note of all users, and their files and copied them on a spare hard drive and even a CDROM first. Then I formatted the drive and made it look exactly like it did originally. Needless to say the owner was tickled to death. Email, ie *.dxb and internet favorites and even Mozila Firefox application data files have to be copied including .wab (address books) if used.
I have tons of computers that I intentionally try every thing know to my capable mind on. I run through the registry and clean it out as I see fit. If you have a practice machine, you can see the difference.
Not everybody has an old computer laying around to experiment on. I am fortunate that I have been doing computer repairs since 1998 in my spare time and have experimented every way imaginable on everything from a 486 to a pentium 4.
Reformatting is done in to ways quick, and low level. You will never forget the low level format as a large drive will take all night.
I have software that will retrieve data if it hasn't been low level formatted.
Suggestion is if it seems to be working fine, and you are content with it, don't fix it.
My favorite machine is a Dell D600 triple boot, with ME, 2000 Pro, XP Pro
ALL on FAT32 Partition so that I can have MY WAY with any of the OS Operating Systems without Flack and I can do backdoor cleanups without unable to access this file etc.
An Ounce of Prevention is worth a Pound of Cure. Clean the computer regularly, and back EVERYTHING up, or you will end up like me 6 years ago, and Brand new Godforsaken MAXTOR 160 gig hard drive half full of info that was about to be backed up when suddenly while I was running scandisk as I normally do, it started Clicking... I almost died.
To make it worse MAXTOR send me another drive. Guess what it would fail very soon...
Don't rely on your disk Hard Disk to hold your data as it is not a matter of if the hard disk is going to fail, it is a matter of WHEN????
To many reasons for reformat
by zelmo - 8/16/09 7:07 PM In reply to: Reasons behind reformatting your hard drive and reinstalling Windows OS? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
In the past 3 weeks I have had to reformaat my drives for several reasons, these being,. Rootkits and bots, driver conflicts,
software srewups and comcasts new e-mail system, which will open suspect e-mails rather then deleting them, and One Program that when installs and runs to clean up problems, instead deletes neede progras and drivers and causes system instability, the program is System mechanic, I sugest to anyone that has this program to destroy it
Should we laugh or cry?
by rbsjrx - 8/17/09 1:41 AM In reply to: To many reasons for reformat by zelmo"In the past 3 weeks I have had to reformaat my drives for several reasons, these being,. Rootkits and bots, driver conflicts,
software srewups and comcasts new e-mail system, which will open suspect e-mails rather then deleting them, and One Program that when installs and runs to clean up problems, instead deletes neede progras and drivers and causes system instability, the program is System mechanic, I sugest to anyone that has this program to destroy it"
1. What antivirus and antispyware software are you running that lets all these past your defenses? We'd all like to know so we can avoid them!
2. You know, just because you get you Internet feed from Comcast doesn't mean you have to use their lame software. I get my feed from Comcast as well. My primary email account is on my own collocated server which I access with a real email client (Thunderbird). I also get email via Gmail, Yahoo, Earthlink, and AOL. I can access all of them either through Thunderbird or my browser (Firefox).
3. System Mechanic sucks rocks throuhg a straw - that's old news. Don't you read up on utilities before entrusting your machine to them?
Action items:
1. Get a good security suite. I use Zone Alarm and have never had a problem, but if you want something free, even AVG is better than nothing. Avast is a little better, but somewhat more intrusive. Avoid Norton - it's a resource hog and the consumer version has built-in holes to allow it to work with all the OEM trialware it's usually bundled with.
2. Make sure you have a good bidirectional firewall. Vista's is OK, but any pre-Vista firewall from Microsoft is pretty much worthless. Try Comodo or the free version of Zone Alarm - they're both free and work well.
3. For performance issues, use a good disk defrag utility.IObit Defrag is very good, but Glary makes an OK one as well. I use Diskeeper, but it's not free.
4. Since you're obviously a non-technical user, avoid most registry cleaners like the plague! If you feel compelled to use one, try IObit Advanced System Care, Ccleaner, or Glary. They all work well and won't destroy your system.
None of this is new and none of it is rocket science. All it takes is a little reading and a modicum of judgment.
reformating and reinstalling
by mrtike - 8/16/09 8:18 PM In reply to: Reasons behind reformatting your hard drive and reinstalling Windows OS? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Reformating and reinstalling is not a scheduled maintanance procedure.
You should only do this when your operating system has been severly corrupted and wont bootup.
It has been my experience that XP doesnt like being installed on top of another installation.
Reformating works, but leaves residuals in the partition and could cause reinstalation problems.
I prefer to fdisk, eliminate the existing partition. Recreate a new partitionand then reinstall the O.S
You can do all this from the XP install disk.Just make sure you answer all the questions correctly.
Remember there is always safe mode and system restore,and you should always do a complete backup of your hard drive and create the ASR disk.
hope this helps .
mike
Why reinstall
by LostValley - 8/16/09 9:32 PM In reply to: Reasons behind reformatting your hard drive and reinstalling Windows OS? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
No matter how diligently you perform housekeeping there will be many, many, (did i mention many?) links, temp files, stuff and crap that WinHose puts on hard drive which are very 'hidden.' Same with other site cookies. Consider the necessity as very similar to a 2000 hour tear down on private aircraft engine. When you do reinstall be sure to save your browser settings and any data pertinent to you which you wish to keep. Hope this helps.
Format
by shaddowdragon - 8/17/09 12:10 AM In reply to: Reasons behind reformatting your hard drive and reinstalling Windows OS? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
The reason why is it is the easiest way out. However, I have run XP on one of my machines on 24/7 for over 2 years. I do not support formating as you will be running from the problem. XP since service pack two should run forever. Show Stopping issues that would cause me to format drive
- Virus with no Clean up tool
- OS migration onto a drive that has been in use somewhere else
- Powersurge and Lightning or other acts of God
All other issues I have generally fixed with a virus removal tool, windows defender, windows event veiwer. If you take the time to get to know your machine, background processes and all, it becomes easy to isolate unusual software and behaviours.
People do bad things and make bad choices
by pllam - 8/17/09 5:33 AM In reply to: Reasons behind reformatting your hard drive and reinstalling Windows OS? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
From time to time people do bad things, like answer e-mails that promise to, well do most anything. The sites they visit may do a drive by install of malicious software, or they may offer a program that the user runs, the program may or not be malicious just poorly written.
Even downloading well written apps can be a bad thing, remember someone once said “even too much of a good thing can be bad”. Things like printers, scanners and any other piece of hardware you buy now wants to load a quick start on the taskbar, pretty soon there are dozens of them sucking the life out of your computer. Even software you purchase wants to “phone home” all the time, this all takes time and memory.
Then there are the drivers that don’t play well together, I have two programs that each require a dongle to run, If I plug in both dongles at the same time the computer dies, thankfully there is never a time when I would need to run both at the same time, but you get the idea.
So after you have loaded tons of programs (adding to the crapware that came with your computer), maybe an undetected virus or two and several new pieces of hardware your computer starts to bog down, even crash from time to time, getting rid of the offending software is the key, and the easiest way to do that completely is to start all over.
Ok, let me stop here for a second, I want to be clear, this is not a problem with Windows, it is a problem with the thousands of pieces of software and bits of software remnants that cause the problem. The problem with the Windows is that it lets bad applications run, once upon a time MS tried to not let this happen and they got lambasted, so we have what we asked for.
The long and short is, no, you should not have to reload the OS all the time, use care when purchasing and installing software, read the install screens and do not let all those add on bits install. Do not (in case you missed that DO NOT) get pirated software (or music) from a P2P site, you are asking for trouble. Install a firewall and virus app at the least, don’t fall for those scams you get in your e-mail.
reformatting your hard drive
by jrvazzer - 8/17/09 7:21 AM In reply to: Reasons behind reformatting your hard drive and reinstalling Windows OS? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
What’s the reason behind reformatting your hard drive and
reinstalling Windows occasionally? Is because customer service does not want to spend time diagnosing the problem so the sure quick way is to format your hard drive. I was a loyal Gateway customer, because of their life time life line. But in the last four years or so their method of helping you is to reformat your hard drive they don’t check for hardware issues or software conflicts, they just go for the format disregarding that you will lose your save data.; They say go to a recovery expert and spend hundreds of dollars then come back to me and we will help you reformat your hard drive.. I've done it so much that I really don't need their help anymore. I went to a friend who is a IT person who placed a cd in my computer and I was able to boot my hard drives and was able to transfer my data to an external hard drive then I formatted my hard drive to it original condition. I have reformatted my computer at lease 7 times in 2 1/2 years. Its always the same reason it run very slow, application stop working and probably that is the problem. I keep loading my computer with application that are old and working with music and video's you need a clean computer with no clitches so if you keep loading different software thing eventually will cause your hard drives to fail. Just put in what you need and remove it completely when your not using it again. Also make sure that your DVD burner is working properly that also can cause many freeze up if is not loading software properly or recognizing cd's just replace it.
Anyway after you format your hard drive try downloading free diagnosing software for hard drives and see if it damage in some way and if it is replace it. Today hardrives and DVD burners are very cheap. If you are formatting the hard drive remember you don't have to loose your data their is alot of help out their to recoup without spending alot of money.
Reasons to reformat and reinstall windows
by Keynone - 8/17/09 8:09 AM In reply to: Reasons behind reformatting your hard drive and reinstalling Windows OS? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
All versions of Windows ever since Windows 95 use a Registry to record all software settings for all software installed, such as user preferences and locations of all files it needs to use to run. When you uninstall a program, it tries to remove all settings and files that it added, but it is like demolishing a house while you are still in it. It has to keep some things around so it knows what to do as it is uninstalling and it can't remove the files that the uninstall program uses to uninstall the program.
Even installing Windows Updates causes these kind of orphaned registry entries. So over time, your registry will become bloated with these kinds of entries, and unless you are experienced enough to go in and clean out the registry manually, or use a registry cleaning software package. Most people don't do either, and don't want spend money to do this, so Windows will slow down as the registry continues to grow more bloated. This is when it is good to reformat the hard drive and reinstall Windows, or some people go out and buy a new PC.
Why Reinstall Windows.
by Grimbles - 8/17/09 8:50 AM In reply to: Reasons behind reformatting your hard drive and reinstalling Windows OS? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Hi Stephanie - Very good question. I'll start off by saying that, in my opinion, the reinstall option is put forward far to often as a solution for problems which could often be solved via less dramatic methods.
There are, however, times when a reinstall can be the best option:
1) After serious malware infection/s; It is nigh on impossible to ever guarantee that serious infections have been completely removed. The only real way to be 100% certain is to reformat and reinstall.
2) If a user is experiencing multiple software issues, each involving a complicated and time consuming diagnosis. Under these circumstances a reinstall can be the best option because it is, by far, the most expedient solution.
Reinstalling is frequently recommended because it is a panacea (cure all). Most issues are caused by corrupt or missing system files/program files/registry items, faulty drivers, malware, etc and a reinstall puts everything back to a clean, pristine state.
I know quite a few experienced users recommend reinstalling Windows on a regular basis. Their theory is that, over a period of time, the data which Windows collects, together with left over files/remnants from uninstalls, etc. accumulates to a stage where it slows down the system and causes issues, regardless of regular maintenance. This may be true for some 'heavy' users and those who are regularly testing and installing/uninstalling software but not generally for the average user. Under normal circumstances the average home user should not have to worry about re-installing, certainly not on a regular basis.
Rule of thumb Stephanie...if it ain't broke, don't fix it!!
cheers....JIM
There is no requirement
by rkinne01 - 8/17/09 10:21 AM In reply to: Reasons behind reformatting your hard drive and reinstalling Windows OS? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
You do not need to reformat your system every so often unless you've got problems that cannot be fixed by convential methods.
Here are a few reasons to re-install Windows:
1. Virus infection. Viruses can embed themselves into a computer so deeply that there is no other way to remove them than to remformat them.
2. A part of the OS has become corrupted and cannot be repaired.
3. When upgrading to a new version of Windows a clean install is the way to go.
4. Switching from 32 bit to 64 bit would require a new install.
5. Resizing partitions may require re-installing the current OS.
6. Some people have extra time on their hands and think its fun to have a fresh install.
I've listed a few reasons for new installs I'm sure there are many more. Vista has been VERY stable for me since the first install so I think that the more modern OS's will require less care then previous versions. Here's hoping Windows 7 will improve on stability and longevity of the Windows line.
Reason is Laziness or lack of knowlege
by vladito - 8/21/09 7:38 PM In reply to: There is no requirement by rkinne01Even if a windows installation cannot be repaired you can always rename the Windows and documents and settings directories. Formatting yor partiton is a waste of time, because you have to previously back everything on such partition. If your Windows installation is beyond hope you can install a new one using a different name such as "Winxp" or "VistaII". 95% of the time the "documents and settings" is preserved if you use another user name at the windows installation prompt
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