Well this is the 2nd time in like 4 months that I have to do it, reinstalling all your favorite software, codecs, retrieving lost images having to rip all your CDs all over etc etc, it’s a fking pain in the ass, isn’t it? i just felt like bitching about it… any thoughts? 
>> deep freeze that.
I like to format my PC. It’s like taking a shower. Cleans up all the dirt and leaves you with a nice warm feeling.
Why are you formatting your PC so often? I do sane-but-crazy stuff to my PCs pretty often (testing somebody’s weird bug repro, for example), but hardly ever have to format…
Get a second or external hard drive to back up important stuff, make sure you have an “Install Packages” directory holding a back-up of all the install packages you know you want. (Plus probably links to where to get the more up to date versions - when those show up, update your install packages directory.) Secondary / back-up hard drives are a lot cheaper than the pain of losing family photos, that kind of thing.
Truth. I never have to re-install cuz I seem to be lucky, virus-wise, and haven’t had a desktop hard drive failure yet, but I’ve got everything in a removable external hd, ready to be re-installed.
Well, the first time i had to format cuz it wouldn’t even start, it was stuck in a start up loop so I just had to do it, that was about 4 months ago. Now I did it because it was acting up and i didn’t feel like trying to fix, much less paying for that, so I just went the lazy way, wich is probably saving me some time.
About the back up, I do have about 310Gigs of external drives and I do have a Install package directory, great advise tho, ty
Partition your hard drive. Yeah, you’ll still have to install codecs/drivers, but your ripped music will still be there.
I have no problems reformatting my comp. I do it once every 3-5 months.
Just do an image of your OS partiton and burn it, that’ll save you reinstalling all programs/codecs and all that.
Yep. Ghost it. :tup:
I have a CD of the utilities that I use (VCD Gear, Flash FXP, Photoshop, etc.) and as for codecs… Get VLC Player.
I actually quite enjoy it. I reformat about once every six months. I have everything saved anyway. How long does it really take? About two hours…
Is this a thing PC users should do all the time? I’m mostly a Mac user, but I just built a PC for playing games on not too long ago… is reformatting like a fix-all or something?
What’s up with you people? I’ve had this computer for roughly 4 years and I haven’t had to reformat it once.
Use torrents to get your porn and you won’t ever get a virus.
If you use it strictly for playing games and not checking out your myspace or any of the other stupid things people do to put garbage on their PC, you shouldn’t have to worry about it.
Thats what I did and it helped save shit loads of time. Ghost a fresh image of your computer with all your shit and reimage that pc. Saves you all from installing all of that junk you had on your previous pc.
This is the truth. I tend to format my machine on a regular basis just to toy with new OSs and/or because I mess things up toying with those new OSs. 
If you have all of your data backed up, it’s really not a huge deal. The only real pain is just waiting for the HDD to format and then configuring things like video drivers.
Acronis True Image > Norton Ghost.
I really like using Virtual PC and VMWare for my testing for new OSes, as well.
As far as formatting? I like doing it, but I don’t really need to do it too often. shrug
Or you could learn how to take care of your PC. Run good AV, Lavasoft Ad-aware, Spybot, etc. Learn how to edit the registry and remove gunk from old programs, and pay attention to what’s running on your comp. I only do reinstalls when I buy new harddrives.
“Remove gunk from old programs” is pretty dangerous. Editing the registry is really dangerous.
I’m all for people being power users, but more people damage their systems from that kind of thing than benefit from them. Know your limits. If you’re not 10000% sure (not a typo), leave it alone. People break WMP Real Real Good all the time because they misinterpret how things work. =\
correct: Windows users… PC =/= Windows