do you need to reformat when you change video drivers?

[theyedi]

I purchased 2 intel x25-m 80gb and am planning to raid 0 them. However, I'm going to be using a 4850 until fermi comes out, at which point I'll have to get different video drivers. Would it be best to reformat, or would simply removing them suffice?

 

[Engineer]

Try Guru3d's Driver Sweeper to remove them. Best I've used (but there might be better).

Click me...

 

[tcsenter]

Definitely reformat after every change on your PC. Even for applications, its best to just wipe the hard drive rather than uninstall them. :\

 

[EarthwormJim]

I have never had to.

 

[tungtung]

As far as I can tell from experience, you don't have to reformat when changing video card even from ATI to nVidia or vice versa. However I think if you really want a "clean" running system then reformat would most likely be the best option. I've tried those driver cleaner softwares in the past, but quite honestly I felt that they just never managed to clean everything down as clean as if you're actually never installed those driver in the first place.

 

[Zap]

Actually, the drives are at that point contaminated on an atomic level. Best bet is to just buy some new SSDs at that time and send the old, contaminated ones to me for proper recycling/disposal.

 

[EarthwormJim]

As far as I can tell from experience, you don't have to reformat when changing video card even from ATI to nVidia or vice versa. However I think if you really want a "clean" running system then reformat would most likely be the best option. I've tried those driver cleaner softwares in the past, but quite honestly I felt that they just never managed to clean everything down as clean as if you're actually never installed those driver in the first place.

Why do you feel that way? It's not like graphics drivers are performing voodoo on your Windows installation and are completely hidden.

 

[theyedi]

Actually, the drives are at that point contaminated on an atomic level. Best bet is to just buy some new SSDs at that time and send the old, contaminated ones to me for proper recycling/disposal.

What about quantum entanglement? It's possible the corrupted driver data was transferred to every SSD that currently exists. Guess I'll have to wait for post-SSD storage :{

 

[TJCS]

Try Guru3d's Driver Sweeper to remove them. Best I've used (but there might be better).

Click me...

+1
​

 

[tungtung]

Why do you feel that way? It's not like graphics drivers are performing voodoo on your Windows installation and are completely hidden.

I'm just saying that cause the OP seems to be the type that wants everything to be "perfect". And yea I've used those driver cleaner and I have seen that there are bits and pieces of system files and/or config settings (be it some odd ini file or some registry key setting) that are still left at times. Again I know those don't mean much in real world usage, but again the OP sounded to me like someone who would care for even a minute difference in performance and all.