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Author Topic: Factory Reset; good or bad idea to clean computer?  (Read 47992 times)

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ahern

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    Factory Reset; good or bad idea to clean computer?
    « on: February 22, 2014, 02:34:18 PM »
    1) The to the point Question;  Factory Reset; good or bad idea to clean computer? Would doing a factory reset multiple times over the life of a computer be harmful?

    First off, thanks for any response!

    2) My history; I am new to the forum. Computer dummy, slow learner, always afraid of messing up my computer. About 8 years ago I paid Dell phone customer service to walk me through a factory restore on an older P.C.

    I had to have the hard drive replaced a year ago on the laptop in question. Purchased new 2010 Toshiba laptop satellite m645, OS is windows 7, McAfee anti virus.
    I can give more info on the laptop if needed. I have backed up all my files to external hard drive. For me it would be worth a whole day of reinstalling programs & microsoft updates to have my computer clean as new again!

    3) The not as brief question(s) & explanation; My question stems from the idea of doing this for the sole purpose of cleaning up my computer. I have at least one problem.   I may have other problems that I don't know about.  For me  it seems to be running fine. If I have any virus I am not aware of it.

    a) (1 Problem) When I tried to burn a win 7 recovery dvd it gave me error message (0xC0AA0301). So I did an internet search about the error message. I was directed from a trusted page to a company which I believe sells a form of registry cleaner although they didn't call it that. Next downloading their free software program which did a scan for errors finding 1,000 + errors & if I wanted it fixed my credit card was then needed. At which point I uninstalled their program.  I read in one of the forums here that registry cleaners are not always good. The reasons make a lot of sense to me.  Besides that I am not a big fan of many of those companies sales tactics. Some give a virus so you will feel forced to buy their product to fix the virus. I learned that from experience. I accidently clicked on a popup that I mistook for my anti virus program.

    b) (Fact or Fiction)? "After a couple of factory resets you should buy a new computer." This was a comment on youtube under a HOW to do a factory restore followed by a  web address on where a new p.c. could be purchased, on sale of course.  Anyway, doing the factory reset seems easy enough. Although there were many other comments of people having problems.

    c) Do I invite back in any errors when I restore backup files?

    d) Lastly, after the completed reset  would you advise a program such as "Ninite" or another to cut down on the spyware and annoying advertisements? I get so weary of it! Or is that a fact of life, get use to it or quit using the computer.

    If you made it to the end thank you! Thanks for all help & suggestions!

    Geek-9pm


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    Re: Factory Reset; good or bad idea to clean computer?
    « Reply #1 on: February 22, 2014, 09:16:03 PM »
    No, there is no limit on factory restore. The question is only why one would need to so man y restores. And the answer is: The owner likes to experiment.  The factory restore is the way out of a bad experiment.

    HDD [Hard Disk Drives] have a re write capability measures in the  tens of thousands on the low end. Or hundreds of thousands on  the upper end. It varies a lot. Aurally, that is a pessimistic guess. High quality hard drives have  MTF [Mean Time to Failure]  near a million hours
    A general reference:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_disk_failure.
    The article above has flaws, but it gives you some orientation.
    Mean Time to Failure is very high most of the time. In a few caws, a hard drive can have infant mortality.  Reputable vendors offer a one year warranty.
    One year is 8766 hoers.  Amuse only a part of that time is a write operation.Even if write operations have a higher failure, it still would still be a long, long time.

    Does that answer your question?

    Note: This  is about HDD.
    SSD is a can of worms.

    ahern

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      Re: Factory Reset; good or bad idea to clean computer?
      « Reply #2 on: February 22, 2014, 10:40:40 PM »
      Thanks Geek-9PM

      What's SSD?  = Solid State

      c) Do I invite back in any errors when I restore backup files?

       I realize this may be a dumb question but, that's who your helping.

      d) Lastly, after the completed reset  would you advise a program such as "Ninite" or another to cut down on the spyware and annoying advertisements? I get so weary of it! Or is that a fact of life, get use to it or quit using the computer.

      Thanks Again!

      Geek-9pm


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      Re: Factory Reset; good or bad idea to clean computer?
      « Reply #3 on: February 22, 2014, 11:13:49 PM »
      Spyware is unlawful. Except if a big company does it. Use of some kind of AV program is now a requirement for all home users. Corporate users may have some other means to protect the workstations. Good Spyware program stop real threats, but allow known companies to interrogate lour PC.

      Anti Spyware and Anti Virus may be called different things. Yet some major AV packages include Anti Spyware.

      In general, errors on a HDD does  not increase with repeated reads. If anything, it drops. That is hard to prove. The statistics get into very, very low error rates. Like on part in a trillion in in the case of hardware that is good. ECC, error correcting code. is part of many mass storage devices. When you  do a restore on your computer, the HDD electronics will 'repair' flaws in the disk surface by remapping weak sectors. OK, not really a repair, but has the same result.
      But if there was a 'hard' error, it will propagate. A 'hard' error is one that can not be corrected and was there from the start. Or was made by a huge disturbance. Lightning strike or nuclear blast. Or fire or flood.
      Yes, HDD can fail. But failure of a power supply is more likely for a PC beyond its infancy. Power supplies decline with age faster taht the HDD. On average.

      The program you named is a commercial product to help with updates.
      http://ninite.com/
      I am not knowledgeable about its features.
      Thee are some other tools with similar features. A few are free. The Malwrebytes program does its own update checking. So do many AV programs, like Avast.

      Asking question is what makes this forum work. 'Seek and ye shall find.'



      ahern

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        Re: Factory Reset; good or bad idea to clean computer?
        « Reply #4 on: February 23, 2014, 01:48:02 PM »
         
        "Asking questions is what makes this forum work. 'Seek and ye shall find.'

        Bless you my son ;D

        I am still trying to digest the HDD Wikipedia link & many things you have shared. For me computer is like trying to learn an more important understand a foreign language. It's hard for me to rap my pea-brain around some of the concepts, terms, & acronyms. I need a special dictionary for the acronyms. I will do more research on anti spyware, Malwrebytes, Avast, Ninite.

        Presently I'm just using McAfee & Windows Defender. I disable cookies I don't recognize until I find something that doesn't work. I also uninstalled Google Chrome & a few others. " to cut down on the spyware and annoying advertisements? I get so weary of it! Or is that a fact of life, get use to it or quit using the computer."

        Thanks Again for being willing to help! :)

        Geek-9pm


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        Re: Factory Reset; good or bad idea to clean computer?
        « Reply #5 on: February 23, 2014, 02:32:23 PM »
        You are welcome.
        Oh, forgot to mention https://www.mywot.com/
        Quote
        WOT is a free website reputation, rating and review tool that helps find trustworthy websites and protects against online scams, untrustworthy links, and ...

        ahern

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          Re: Factory Reset; good or bad idea to clean computer?
          « Reply #6 on: February 26, 2014, 11:32:23 AM »
          Thanks for this web address & for all your help! ;D

          Aussies-Online



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            Re: Factory Reset; good or bad idea to clean computer?
            « Reply #7 on: March 09, 2014, 01:10:19 AM »
            Not too sure what you mean by factory reset... as I never did one.
            As a rule... when I do a new installation on my computer... it last me 4 or 5 years.
            It is by that time that I notice that the computer is not as fast as it used to be.

            You cannot do a clean installation by using a backup.
            Unless you kept your original backup from 5 years ago.
            But if you were to use a 5 years old backup... it would only contain your OS and all your programs... but not all the documents and emails you saved since then.
            You can get around that by saving all your documents before using the backup.

            Using a restore point is only good if you know at what stage the problem occurred. And preferably with 24 or 48 hours. In that case... using the restore point from 24 - 48 hours earlier might solve the problem.

            But to have a clean installation... the only way is to format your hard drive and start all over again. And it is a big job if you have lots of programs and hardware to install. I just did mine and it took me a week... doing a few more installations everyday. And solving problems along the way. Plus you have to manually redo all your settings on each program. It is a pain.

            Regarding viruses. I have used the free AVG anti-virus for the past 4 years and never had a problem.
            The big mistake people make is to think that because they have an anti-virus and a firewall... they are bullet proof. It is not the program which let the virus in... but the people. You go on the internet... and if you did set your security properly... you will get messages asking you "are you sure you want to download this" or "let this program run". And you better be sure. If you are not. DON'T DO IT.

            I also noticed during this last installation... that with every free program you download from the internet... they are trying to install 2 or 3 others programs at the same time. Make sure to decline all of them until you get to the last one... which is the one you only wanted. All the others are a form of spyware. And if you are not very careful in reading everything during the download and installation... it is very easy to get caught.


            Dana



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              Re: Factory Reset; good or bad idea to clean computer?
              « Reply #8 on: March 30, 2015, 12:49:48 AM »
              How do I do a factory reset on my laptop computer?

              patio

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              Re: Factory Reset; good or bad idea to clean computer?
              « Reply #9 on: March 30, 2015, 05:43:05 AM »
              It's different for each Manuf...

              The full directions will  be at the laptop maker's site...
              " Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist should have his head examined. "

              SuperDave

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              Re: Factory Reset; good or bad idea to clean computer?
              « Reply #10 on: March 30, 2015, 12:27:19 PM »
              ahern, If you want to be sure that your computer is clean, start a new thread in the malware forum and I can give you some scans to run.
              Windows 8 and Windows 10 dual boot with two SSD's