Formatting too much?

[Wiggo]

I can understand that of software beta and hardware testers but in your case why don't ya use a multi-boot setup instead? :?:

I'm settin' up another multi-boot PC shortly that will handle a few M$ oses plus a few flavours of Linux all controlled by System Commander on an 80GB HDD. :devil win
<center>:cheers:</center>

[minibubba]

I do that as well, currently i'm running win98, winxp pro, and red hat 8

[Wiggo]

Well 18-24 months I get from a Win9x install (excludin' mitagatin' factors in ME) and goodness knows how long with XP (havn't had to redo one of mine yet except for a dud HDD over a year ago now) but the Linux oses will be a challenge to me at first.
<center>:cheers:</center>

[eLinux]

Wow y'all know what you're talking about. With so many peeps formatting so much I definately feel much more comfortable with formatting :) I thought it would put lots of wear and tear on drive, but I normally quick format anyways, and if all it does it wipe the header to make the OS think there's nothing there, then it definately shouldn't wear it enough to scare me :)

Thanks for everybody's input...definately very very helpful! :)

[eLinux]

<snip>

I COULD go a year and do it all at once, but why suffer the slowdowns and reconstruction needed to fix XP? I can get data to my server in 10 minutes, format the HD, install XP and my apps in less than two hours. But it is only 20 minutes of my time, the rest is unattended.

<snip>

How do you do all of this unattended... If you don't mind me asking, what is your backup method? Curious. I bet it beats writing 10 CDs to back up all of your data :) (which is what I'm normally forced to do to back up my data)

[mrfin]

I use Norton Ghost to make an image of my HDD right after a clean install of XP and all my software. I usually update my image every other week. It only takes about 10 minutes to make an image and about the same to transfer that image back to the HDD. If I ever have any problems, I just re-ghost my HDD and in ten minutes my OS and ALL my games and programs are back like a fresh install.

[eLinux]

I use Norton Ghost to make an image of my HDD right after a clean install of XP and all my software. I usually update my image every other week. It only takes about 10 minutes to make an image and about the same to transfer that image back to the HDD. If I ever have any problems, I just re-ghost my HDD and in ten minutes my OS and ALL my games and programs are back like a fresh install.

That's a really great idea. I've read that PowerQuest's Drive Image is also really good. How exactly do you "reghost"? Do you pop in a bootable CD or something?

Just curious :) Thanks for the really great answer! :thumb:

[mrfin]

There are a couple of ways to perform a ghost image. You will need either 2 HDD's or 1 HDD w/2 partitions. You just need a place to save the ghost image. You can make a small 2GB partition to hold the image or place it on another installed HDD. You can also burn the image to CD's within the Ghost program, but it will take about 5-6 CD's. That is a waste of CD's, plus it takes a lot longer to make an image. The Ghost program has a floppy disk to boot from. It is very simple to do.

[sKuLLsHoT]

well i have never had to format except when i moved back from intel to amd cpu which included a move from an intel chipset to a VIA one, other than that i never have troubles.

the system restore utility in windows xp is very handy to undo stuff when you install some borked app or driver, and goes a long way to making life easier, just roll back/restore to before you borked it and continue using system / delete leftovers, i can't see how anyone can get a truly borked winxp, unless they turned off the system restore :rolleyes:

[josh_b]

i'm always playing around with different OS and configs...and every once in a while because it is easier to format than to figure out what went wrong...this is only a philosophy that I use with my own comp, when it belongs to someone else I figure out what is wrong with it before I ever mention formatting

Haha.. yeah when I get tired of how I have the system setup or I want to install another distro.... format time.

[nosX]

I Format every 4 months but if u have bad bytes on ur HD u can loose HD Space , i tend to mess alot with my pc (testing viruses) and stuff so i kinda loose 300mb to 1gb every time i format ( 60GB Maxtor 5400 RPM) , also if u guys didnt know if ur hard drive has its own cable it runs much better making ur HD share the cable with some other drive slows it down.

[Potatoe2]

I would like to interject a word of caution out there if you use oem XP pro. I personally have reformatted at least 5 times since august and ran into a snag on my last try. I received a message saying that I had exceeded my alloted usage for my code and that I needed to contact Microsoft and they gave me another code that can only be used once. It was a code only with numbers and much longer than my original code. The annoying thing about it is that I have to call in everytime I reformat now and answer a few questions. They ask what I use my computer for and why I am reformatting. It is none of their buisness the way I see it. I just thought that I would vent alittle. Anyone else run into this problem with oem software?

[nosX]

tell them ur reformatting cause their program is a POS lol :smokin:

[Wiggo]

I'll go along with that one. :thumb:

[nosX]

mehehehe :afro: