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« on: July 01, 2009, 03:26:45 PM » |
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When was the last time you reformatted your computer? For the month of July we thought it would be interesting to see when the last time you reformatted (erased your computer and started over) if ever. Feel free to comment about why you ended up having to do this, how long you troubleshot the computer before doing it, and/or how long it took you to get everything installed again. All past monthly polls and results can also be found on the Computer Hope poll page.
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unlovedwarrior
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« Reply #2 on: July 01, 2009, 05:41:33 PM » |
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i cant remember 3-6 months ago
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If you are having infection issues please try the following programs superantispyware, AVG free(or your antivirus), AVG antispyware, spybot search and destroy, Ccleaner, adaware se personel. install them and update, reboot in safe mode( rapidly tap f8 before windows loads) fix what they find then reboot normal mode
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macdad-
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« Reply #6 on: July 02, 2009, 08:02:01 AM » |
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Had to get mine reformatted a week ago(HD crash), after the repair the warranty was still good on the HD and they gave us a new one(with three times the capacity  )
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If you dont know DOS, you dont know Windows... Thats why Bill Gates created the Windows NT Family. 
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patio
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« Reply #12 on: July 02, 2009, 06:38:31 PM » |
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This is probably a stupid question but what benefit do you get from re-formatting monthly?
Hard to say .... It's an old school habit i never lost. But i rarely see any performance hits on the benchtest machine and none of the 5 OS's even hiccups.
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computeruler
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« Reply #17 on: July 03, 2009, 10:43:12 AM » |
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quaxo
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« Reply #20 on: July 03, 2009, 05:38:54 PM » |
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I don't think my desktop has been formatted since it was upgraded just over a year ago.
My laptop was formatted (restored) as soon as I got it back home. See, often when you buy computers in Thailand, they immediately fill it with pirated software like Windows, Office, and just about everything else. While my laptop did come with an authentic version of Vista, they had stuck a bunch of other crap on it while they were "checking" it. Needless to say the system was all screwed up by the time I got it, so as soon as it was out of the box and powered on.
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Cityscape
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« Reply #21 on: July 03, 2009, 06:55:28 PM » |
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I reformat one of my 2 computers at least every 3 months. My Xp desktop normally 3 times a year. I'm getting ready to do a reformat again soon. And my other one....anywhere between 14 days to 2 months. The shortest time for a reformat is about 3-4 days. For example: I had XP Media edition in February. I reformatted to XP Pro for march. In early April i switched to Windows 2000. A week later i installed XP Pro alongside. Then in early June I reformatted again and installed Ubuntu Linux. Hard to say .... But i rarely see any performance hits on the benchtest machine and none of the 5 OS's even hiccups.
What are the "5 OS's"?
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Semysig
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« Reply #27 on: July 04, 2009, 05:45:39 AM » |
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I resist doing it at all costs. It's a living to reinstall all the apps and configure them again I believe this is by design by the demonseed that is M$!
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Broni
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« Reply #32 on: July 04, 2009, 10:40:52 AM » |
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And then the point of formatting your drive would be ... what? If you just go ahead and put exactly what was on it before, back on it, there's no difference, unless I'm missing something. You use an image from time, when computer was working fine.
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Calum
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« Reply #33 on: July 04, 2009, 10:58:02 AM » |
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You use an image from time, when computer was working fine.
Sure, but from what I understood of Carbon's post, he meant - take an image, format the drive, restore the image. Sorry if that's not the case. Anyway, I still don't see the point of formatting and restoring like that. I take images myself as backups, so I can restore back if something goes wrong (I usually image before I install major sofwtare or make major hardware changes), but I don't see how regularly imaging and reformatting makes sense. Guess this is half directed at patio as he did bring it up.
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JOHNDY
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« Reply #36 on: July 11, 2009, 12:08:44 PM » |
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today i reformated
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kizza1645
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« Reply #37 on: July 14, 2009, 02:13:39 AM » |
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Like this year some time......
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Kieran
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graylady35
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« Reply #38 on: July 14, 2009, 04:17:39 PM » |
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Glad I found this site. What is reformatting your computer, and how often should it be done?
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kizza1645
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« Reply #40 on: July 15, 2009, 12:48:38 AM » |
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Glad I found this site. What is reformatting your computer, and how often should it be done?
hmmm.. It shouldnt really be something you want to do.....let alone often. It wipes your hard drive... so you can reinstall you os.
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Kieran
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Text
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« Reply #42 on: July 18, 2009, 11:46:04 PM » |
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I hate to reformat my computer. Before this last time I did it just the other day, it had been years since I had done it.
You know, all these nifty programs out there and not one solution that I know exists to allow someone to keep all the software the installed and paid for when they reformat. Sure, I can keep my documents and that's just easy. What I REALLY want is to be able to reformat and somehow reinstall all the programs I had with all the settings already intact. Unfortunately, I end up losing my serial numbers and it really sucks.
It's the software and software settings that I lose that makes a reformat the worst.
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Steini
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« Reply #44 on: July 22, 2009, 09:29:51 PM » |
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Text, you might want to have a look at Acronis True Image.
I have been using clonezilla on a 8gb usb-stick to backup and restore xp-pro. It is incredibly fast just about 15 minuets to boot from usb-stick and till i boot up xp-pro. I format my computer only when something bad happens and that is really only like once every 2 years or so or i skip that and just buy new computer. I also use apple computers and i never ever reformat them. I used this usb-stick to duplicate xp-pro to 20 new computers, but beware that you can run into trouble trying to get the oem-key or volume-license-key into those. I recommend only doing duplication like that on linux.
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Ivy
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« Reply #46 on: July 23, 2009, 05:44:55 AM » |
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Ok, Everyone needs to know this, An year back, I used to be reformatting my computer every month, Once I had to reformat it 4 times a month!!!!!!!! The malware removal section used to be flooding with my topics. One day I decided that I'm not gonna call these people from my computer manufacturer company to clean my PC anymore, I almost felt like they were not cleaning the pc completely and I had to call them so many times and pay them so much money!! So I decided to learn to reformat my own computer, I read up a lot of guides and tutorials but it was confusing, but then Patio gave me this tutorial and that was it, I reformatted my computer and ever since I have never ever had a virus or any kind of malware on my computer. Proof
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Use what talent you possess. The woods would be very silent If no birds sang except those that sang best- Henry Van Dyke
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Ivy
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Life's keeping me busy!! My computer lies in dust.

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« Reply #51 on: July 23, 2009, 06:00:40 AM » |
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That would depend on how careful you've been on the Internet...
Nooey, that depended on how the pc was cleaned, those people were not completely cleaning the computer,so that they could keep coming back. And once I cleaned the pc myself, honeestly, sincerely, without any greed (lol) It was cleaned forever, My computing habits are same as Ever.
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Use what talent you possess. The woods would be very silent If no birds sang except those that sang best- Henry Van Dyke
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kpac
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« Reply #53 on: July 23, 2009, 06:13:16 AM » |
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Nooey, that depended on how the pc was cleaned, those people were not completely cleaning the computer,so that they could keep coming back. And once I cleaned the pc myself, honeestly, sincerely, without any greed (lol) It was cleaned forever, My computing habits are same as Ever.
Oh, so you mean the PC was so infected that all that could be done was a reformat? Then that's okay.  Just the way you put it originally sounded like it is now impossible to get malware.... 
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Steini
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« Reply #55 on: July 23, 2009, 08:23:20 AM » |
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Your XP install fits on an 8G usb stik ? ?
XP + sp3 + drivers + some updates + tools. The usb-stick even had some space left. I did add java + .net + new internet explorer + flash + etc. afterwards from different usb-stick Clonezilla strips out the pagefile and some other temporary files before it compresses everything to gzip archive. And I think that is the reason for it being so fast and small, I mean the usb-stick is not capable of reading data that fast but you are only reading gzip image and the cpu is uncompressing it in memory.
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Aegis
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« Reply #56 on: July 23, 2009, 08:48:47 AM » |
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i have not reformatted for about 2 years don't see any need/sense to when its going fine , unless you can show me i'm wrong There is a lot to be said for the adage, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." We can find examples of people who updated drivers, or updated the BIOS on the computer (the instruction set that tells the computer what to do, and how to "set" itself when you turn it on) who updated for no real reason, and got themselves into trouble, especially when "messing with" the BIOS.
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 could've = "could have," not "could of"
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harry 48
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« Reply #57 on: July 23, 2009, 08:58:48 AM » |
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thats true aegis , i love to mess with the pc to learn but i know how to fix it and what not to touch ( most times )
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don't take life to seriously . . . no one get's out alive ! so smile and be happy
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toodawgs
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« Reply #58 on: July 23, 2009, 12:17:00 PM » |
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Re-what-mat? 
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harry 48
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« Reply #59 on: July 23, 2009, 12:20:07 PM » |
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reformatted , if you mean this its taking your pc back to new http://www.computerhope.com/jargon/r/reformat.htm
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don't take life to seriously . . . no one get's out alive ! so smile and be happy
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wow
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« Reply #64 on: July 25, 2009, 08:13:05 AM » |
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Last month
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mammananny
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« Reply #66 on: July 26, 2009, 02:04:10 PM » |
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I make a mess of my computers on a regular basis. Mammananny
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juedjo
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« Reply #67 on: July 27, 2009, 10:48:59 AM » |
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I reformat when things get jacked up enough from the viruses (viri?) that are constantly going around... But there's some real good anti-virus programs out there now. I'm hoping reformatting my laptop will get it performing at 100% again. I was running it with outdated anti-virus protection and it's to the point now where it doesn't boot up right, and I haven't been able to run it from the battery in a long while, not because the battery is bad, but because of not having proper virus protection. Not sure if reformatting will fix it, I haven't used it in months. Now that I've a disc to reformat it with I shall do so! Then I'll have to come back here and change my poll answer! I'm not even sure when the last time I reformatted my desktop computer. I'm not sure if I ever have this one! 
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Starwind51
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« Reply #68 on: July 29, 2009, 09:12:52 PM » |
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 I didn't vote because I didn't understand the question. If you mean a total reformat that wipes the hard drive clean, never. If you mean a disk clean up, ummm... I think I did that about a month ago.
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Kucingkurap
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« Reply #72 on: August 03, 2009, 03:21:46 AM » |
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at 00.00.00 31 July 2009. why?
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