POLL: How often do you reformat your HDD?

[arcenite]

2-4, 13 year old sisters will kill ya!

 

[pillage2001]

<< Pillage, Once a month? What do you have a packard bell or something? >>



No, when you have a pc that's acting gay on you once a month. You need to do it.

 

[JC]

<< "How often do you f|_|ck up your windows installation?" >>



Heh heh....exactly. I reformat my C: partition every 4 months or so. Deleting and uninstalling never seems to clean it up like a good reformatting

JC

 

[JackOfHearts]

Switching OS... seriously changing hardware....

 

[Degenerate]

when ever a new os or os screws

 

[BIGGDOG]

I am definately weird. I love to reinstall stuff to see if I gain just a bit more performance. I do this quite often or at least I used to whenever I got errors. Since XP Professional I have only had errors from Black Ice. So I bought Zone Alarm Pro. No errors to date so no new format.

Side not I had reached my limit on reinstalling Windows XP and it told me to call them for activation and it gave me a toll free number to call. So I did. They asked me why I had been reinstalling the OS and I told them I got a few errors and installed new hardware and they gave me a new code. This code is only good for this time only.

 

[KevinMU1]

Reformatting is a pain in the butt, but it is necessary... it takes me the better part of a day to get it done and everything reinstalled, so I only do it about every 6 months on average. But it is amazing what kind of problems get fixed... like this most recent time, just last week, finally fixed my SSH connections dropping all the time. Weird, huh?

 

[robg1701]

Kevin, yeah, ive spent the better part of 2days tweaking every little thing i can on this installation just to get it perfect....then ill back it up, and as per my post above, will need very little time and very little effort to get back up to speed on a clean system whenever i like.

P.S, forgot to mention it the last time, but the longest install ive _ever_ had was 5 months on Whistler (A.K.A Windows XP....codename was better ) Beta 1

 

[RC5Bri]

This is the longest time I have gone without reformatting...since October 2000. That's when I wen't to Win2k. Prior to that I had the Win9x, and would format every 4-6 months.

 

[trikster2]

 

[trikster2]

Never really had to do it when using linux as my primary computer, but I don't care what MS OS you use, things just run better if you give it a an enema at least once or twice a year.

 

[uhohibrokeit]

i never reformt a drive unless im installing a fresh OS... Have no reason to really. If i upgrade my hard drive will format it of course before i copy my old drive to it... if oyu want to know how often someone installs windows with a reformat, not me.... i just keep the same install since i got Win2K, even over hard ware upgrades. It runs fine if you take care of it.

 

[billyjak]

I have found that leaving it alone, usually is the best method, if it isin't broke don't fix it!
You will usually have problems after a fresh format and install of OS because the registry is always changing at that point,
Only after continued use does it get stable.
So unless you have major conflicts or change OS it's best to leave it alone, just defrag regularly and you'll be fine.
I used to reformat every 7or 8 months and found it to be a complete waste of time.
If it isin't broke, don't fix it.

 

[GrumpyMan]

I never reformat unless there is a problem with hardware or funky drivers that I can't get rid of. I've learned to keep my hard drive clean. I'm currently using a 1 and 1/2 year old install of Win 2000. It's as speedy and never blue screens on me ever. Very stable in fact.

 

[azpatrick]

The bad part about erasing files is the registry is still gunked up. Have you ever tried to de-install Outlook Express? I have on NT4 SP6a - Guess what - you can uninstall it and go right back in and run it again, doesn't even get rid of the desktop ICON.

 

[VBboy]

I hope you guys realize that you do NOT have to format to simply install Windows. Just delete the \Windows or \WinNT directory, the \Program Files directory and a few files in the root. Takes less time than formatting, and you don't lose your data.

Cheers!

 

[robg1701]

Or you could use multiple parttions (or drives)...

 

[CocaCola5]

I average about every 2 months but I always make sure my stuff are on "hard media" not the drive.

 

[ByteMe]

I used to format at least once a month before I installed Windows 98 Second Edition.

Before that I used the Windows OS that came with my computer and it ALWAYS became un stable after a few weeks!

With Windows Second Edition I no loner have those problems such as my computer slowing down and acting funnny.

No rebooting cause the computer's acting funny and such things.