July monthly poll

You can use HD Imaging software (such as Acronis True Image) to take a picture of your hard drive and print it to the newly formatted hard drive, thus keeping everything you previously had.

Can you explain how that works to me please. Sorry genuine thirst for knowledge and I don't get it.

[Moderator]

I have ME installed...but on a different machine...

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.

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.

[Moderator]

Awww  c'mon...i never said that it made sense i just answered the Poll...

 

June 17, 2009... Hehehe 

today i reformated

Like this year some time......

Glad I found this site.  What is reformatting your computer, and how often should it be done?

Reformatting involves backing up (or, making copies) of data you wish to keep, and reinstalling the operating system of the computer, or choosing to install a different operating system.

This is generally done to correct computer problems which cannot be solved by other means.  How often it needs to be done varies with whether there is a problem to corrcect, or whether the user feels doing so will help avoid problems, or the comfort level of the computer user.

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.

I reformatted a couple months ago

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.

[Global Moderator]

Text, you might want to have a look at Acronis True Image.

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.