after a year or so of installing/uninstalling all sorts of crap... catching viruses, trojans, and installing more crap to help me rid of them (im sure some are still hanging around),
im now thinking of formating my harddrive and starting "fresh".... it would take some effort, but i think it might worth it and this time intend to take care of my little baby...
is this time consuming task worth doing? or should i just carry on as is-- im not having any actual trouble, seems a bit more slower than before- but this could just be me.
im also intending to upgrade ram... should i do this before or after the formatting?
I'd say that after a year any Windows system (I assuming this is your OS) starts to suffer from this weird 'latency' problem or general slowness. I'd say it's healthy to wipe it every 6 months. Why not keep a Ghosted image of a clean install and then keep personal data on a seperate disk or somewhere you can easily back it up.
Having said that, here at my school we have this banged up old WinXP PC we have to share for internet access. It was in a pretty bad state, but I think I've more or less managed to keep it going through a combination of switching to Firefox (and making it very hard for people to launch Explorer), AntiVir, AdAware and MS AntiSpyware (although not really sure what the last one does other than notify me of all sorts of things) plus keeping the system up to date with MS upgrades etc.
And be just be sensible about where you browse and what you click on...
Definitely- If you use a wide array of apps, download alot of files, surf constantly as most do nowadays, I recommend doing so twice a year. Make sure you have a high capacity external HDD (+180GB) with a fast connection (firewire preferred) back up yer files (cad,max,mp3's,porn,etc.) and flash fry that f***er nice and clean. Pick a weekend to reinstall everything, tweaking it back to your preference, usually a 2-day process.
Jun 13, 05 8:19 pm ·
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format hardrive- worth it?
hi all...
after a year or so of installing/uninstalling all sorts of crap... catching viruses, trojans, and installing more crap to help me rid of them (im sure some are still hanging around),
im now thinking of formating my harddrive and starting "fresh".... it would take some effort, but i think it might worth it and this time intend to take care of my little baby...
is this time consuming task worth doing? or should i just carry on as is-- im not having any actual trouble, seems a bit more slower than before- but this could just be me.
im also intending to upgrade ram... should i do this before or after the formatting?
thanks for yours helps people...
In short yes, a format is as good as a holiday and will fix cumulative problems that occur with windows..
Yes upgrade ram before hand, 1. to ensure that the ram upgrade was successful and also better a fresh install with more ram.
A words of warning remember to back up your stuff. eg work, bookmarks/ favourites, emails etc..
yes. then after you get it all dialed in the way you want, make an image of the drive so you can restore it to the "clean" state within minutes.
google for software and how to.
sweet, thanks guys...
I'd say that after a year any Windows system (I assuming this is your OS) starts to suffer from this weird 'latency' problem or general slowness. I'd say it's healthy to wipe it every 6 months. Why not keep a Ghosted image of a clean install and then keep personal data on a seperate disk or somewhere you can easily back it up.
Having said that, here at my school we have this banged up old WinXP PC we have to share for internet access. It was in a pretty bad state, but I think I've more or less managed to keep it going through a combination of switching to Firefox (and making it very hard for people to launch Explorer), AntiVir, AdAware and MS AntiSpyware (although not really sure what the last one does other than notify me of all sorts of things) plus keeping the system up to date with MS upgrades etc.
And be just be sensible about where you browse and what you click on...
My two cents.
Oops, sorry, a lot of this has been said already. I should have read the other posts.
Definitely- If you use a wide array of apps, download alot of files, surf constantly as most do nowadays, I recommend doing so twice a year. Make sure you have a high capacity external HDD (+180GB) with a fast connection (firewire preferred) back up yer files (cad,max,mp3's,porn,etc.) and flash fry that f***er nice and clean. Pick a weekend to reinstall everything, tweaking it back to your preference, usually a 2-day process.
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