Reformat

[putingcow]

im just curious, is it okay to reformat a pc, let's say 4x a month or more,

[Raymond]

The last time I was concerned about this question was more than 10 years ago. That time I am new to computers and whenever there's any problem I can't solve, I'll just reformat the hard drive and reinstall Windows. Then someone told me before that frequent reformatting is not good because it stresses the hard drive.

I am not sure how true it is...

[Ceyfer √]

Yah I agree..

[Lenogris]

i would imagen it does stress it quite a bit prolly shortings the life alot the more you do it so id say like once a year at most i do it when i max my hardrive out

[yao90]

Really? But my friend told me that there are schools which reformat once a month.

[Raymond]

I think format once a month should be fine. Once a week is a little too much.

[yao90]

Aww.. Once a week? Haha. Maybe try using the DeepFreeze or stuffs like that. It would be like reformatting once a day and it's hassle free. :P

[Lenogris]

y do you need to reformat so much?

[woody]

I'm pretty sure that formatting will decrease the lifetime of your hard drive. I've heard many knowledgeable people say this. But even still, if your drive brakes down, most companys have a warranty and will replace the hard drive. But it's not something that most people have to worry about.

y do you need to reformat so much?

I use to refomat probably 2 times a month (for almost a year/ I still do it every two months) because my Windows OS would get bogged down with so much software and I just couldn't get it to run fast any more no matter how much I tweaked it. That's why I have external drives, so that when I reformat my C: drive, there are no important documents on it, just the Windows OS and the software I installed which I can easily install upon next Windows installation.

[gravitygun]

If you are much worried about reformating the drive then just use some bootable linux and delete the Windows,Program Files,Documents and Settings folders and bootstrap files like ntldr,boot.ini,etc. using the bootable linux you will be able to remove even the virus infected files which have access restriction.