why format?!?!?

[littleprince]

Man! I'm so sick of ppl formating there computers! or other ppl telling ppl they should format there computers!! Woohoo!! my new computer plays ut bad.... problem??? FORMAT THE COMP! that gotta fix it... whats up with that?? formating can do diddly nothing... anyone ever try upgrading the via drivers etc first? or here's a classic... i just installed a new software... and now my comp crashes... problem?? I got a virus!!!!!! its the worst viurs in the world... causes me to get blue screen of death every five minutes! so FORMAT my comp!! anyone ever consider that its that stupid little shareware program u downloaded yesterday and was programmed by a 12 year old trying to be a millionare???

I noe ppl who have formated there computers for stupid reasons such as i couodn't connect to yahoo.com.... well, duh! there server was down for a while during those dos attacks...
or my instant messanger isn't working.... so i gotta format. well no geez, ur stupid firewall is blocking the port.

i'm sorry but i've just read way too many "hardware solutions" that are simply FORMAT your comp. sure its easy to do, and maybe faster than finding the real problem, but are u sovling anything really???

Yes i noe viruses are common, but come on!! theres NOT THAT MANY! i mean... i noe a friend who was conviced she had a virus... tried everything, mcafee, norton, etc... they couldn't find it, (yes i noe about stealth) like come on! its just stupid software.... dont' go blaming viruses, and formating for new reason pls!!!!!!!!

i feel a lot better now! can go write my midterm in peace...(computer hardware csc258) by the way....

 

[Budman]

Yes i NOE What you mean.























BTW it's spelled KNOW and not NOE.

 

[Shmorq]

As to the constant formatting, in the age when everyone has CD-R's and the media is virtually free, I don't see why more people don't make an image of the hard drive just in case they get hit by these so called 'viruses'. No point taking the hours to format and reinstall all the apps...

 

[LordEdmond]

I agree takes just 6 mins to reinstall W2K with all drivers and its so easy with Ghost

 

[Zipperhead]

ghost is awesome.

 

[Gunbuster]

Most consumers cant handle fixing drivers, it's just faster to tell them to put the restore cd in and run it. (they screw that up also)

 

[Noriaki]

Here's another vote for Ghost.

(well I actually use DI but it does the same thing)

<Cut> Damn budman beat me to it...

 

[Shudder]

I think I'm going to ghost the mofo tonight. Great idea.

I'm getting a new video card and I just freshly did win98 to get rid of winME, so why not.

The only thing that sucks about reformatting is it doesn't work in real life. I hate my job but can't reformat it, or I wish I could reload my life from scratch, but dammit it's not that easy

 

[littleprince]

I so wish i could format my life!! and start fresh with a new athlon (car), mobo (house), and monitor (girl) etc...
hehe...

well, maybe not monitor, i like my samsung just fine i guess...

 

[Vyle]

littleprince, I think a more interesting question rather than ask why people blame viruses, format their hard drives or advise others to format thier hard drives is why does it seem to get on your last nerve?

 

[randomlinh]

ghost is nice, but i tend to do images of my comp w/ most of my needed software.... that means 1.5 GB's to ghost that's what the secondary HD is for .. heh.

The thing is, i used to change HD so much inbetween formats/reinstalls that it would cause more grief to dump an image back on. But now that i have no money left, that won't be a problem

As for me tho, format is usually a last ditch effort. Try all the drivers, and whatnot, and antivirus or whatever.... when all else fails, or if i don't have time for it... i format or temporarily install a second copy of the OS

 

[fargus]

If you DO need/want to format, and you have Ghost, try this little trick:
Once you've got a clean format, create a ghost image of the newly formatted drive. It should be a tiny image, and fit on the floppy with your Ghost executable. Next time you need to format, just restore that image. Presto! You've just reformated your 40 gig or whatever drive in about 15 seconds.

 

[ignorus]

wouldn't that be the same as format C: /q ?

 

[Philly C]

I guess you don't like my sig then. :Q

 

[Thor_Sevan]

Formatting is the easiest way to get rid of must major problems.
BUT... if u are someone like ME and has 20 GB of IMPORTANT and UNDELETABLE Data...
u know... photoshop files sometimes can go up to 80 MB ... it grows up very fast !well... as u may know.. format ISN'T a GOOD option ! hehehe.
Yes, image is a very very very good idea for most people out there.

Thor

 

[Budman]

If you cant format &amp; you must reinstall Windows,then you can always Deltree Windows &amp; deltree progra~1 from dos &amp; reinstall win98.

But dont forget to load Smartdrv before because it will be very slow.

 

[scorpion27]

Why do people format u say?...because most people don't have a clue what they did to screw up there computer, it would 10x longer for them do go around and try re-installing this, adding drivers to that...#1 If people are smart and have a CDr or a zip drive is just make good back ups of your important stuff, trick #2 is STAY AWAY FROM CHEESEY SCREENSAVERS OR FREEWARE DOWNLOADS..#3 Is part. hardrive into 2 partitions...use one for just OS and the other is for all the other crap...and #4..this is a biggie.....know where you download and install programs too...even make special folders for them.....reformatting is sometimes the best option when your not sure what YOU did to kill your computer......

 

[TravisBickle]

&quot;format the computer&quot; is technical support line euphemism for &quot;F*** off for a while and leave us alone, we'd rather waste a lot more of your time than ours. Time is money and your time is your money hahahahahaha&quot; (evil dracula) laugh

 

[TravisBickle]

dp

 

[aerialcombat]

Well, in my opinion, formatting is a very good idea to start fresh. I mean, especially with these cheap HD prices, you can store your important information in another hd or another partition. If you use windows for long enough, it's bound to get mixed up somehow. You need to do a little spring cleaning called &quot;formatting&quot; once in while. Check your computer after formatting your computer. It looks fresh as anything. I don't think an hour of your time restoring your computer is not much considering all the pain it gave you when you didn't format. As far as ghost... It would take hell of a time to ghost all 40gb's.

This is what I do... I partition my computer into 4 parts, 1, keep my system files and program files, 2, I keep my personal stuff(graphics, receipts, pics, backup programs, what not), 3, Games, 4, my mp3s or videos or stuff like that. And whenever I have trouble, &quot;format my 1 partition&quot;. It's the easiest thing. And you can try out different OS's everytime too. I think it's fun, personally. Oh well. At least it's my opinion.

 

[Budman]

aerialcombat,

You can use Ghost to backup only your 1rst partition &amp; save it to your 4rth partition.

This way when windows get's funky all you do is restore from your image &amp; you get that clean fresh feeling again.

Geez i sound like a feminine product comecial.:Q

 

[littleprince]

all these useless formats drive me nuts because people aren't getting to the heart of the problem. or are just being ignorant. if we blamed less of this &quot;ghost&quot; problems on &quot;viruses&quot; and formated less, and blamed the stupid software more for these problems, than maybe we'd get less crappy software, and less &quot;useless&quot; formats etc...

Have you ever been looking for a quick utility, and found a shareware program that has like a 90% user rating, and u just noe it has a memory leak or something... but of course ur sisters gonna blame a virus, and want to do a format... well, maybe i'm not getting my point out clearly. o well. but if u do, than lets not format, and lets blame the stupid software, and don't give them that useless 90% rating, when if they wrote that same program for some kinda graduate, or univ class or whatever, they'd be flunking...

if you don't get the point, just think of it is as a pet peave than...

 

[Budman]

Yes and speeking about pet peeves.

It's spelled to KNOW someting,not NOE something.


I am just letting you know.

sorry if this offends you,it's just bugging the hell out of me,i must be sick.

 

[TravisBickle]

hey Budman what's with the schoolteacher act? did your teach beat ya too?

 

[Budman]

I dont noe,must be my time of the month.


Btw english is my second language too.