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What is "Reformating"

H

haze

n00b
Joined
Sep 4, 2004
Messages
8
My friends would sometimes say that they just reformated there computer, and i was wondering what that is and how you can do it if it helps your computer.
 
In a nutshell you wipe your hard disk of info and reinstall windows etc. Over time, the registry in windows gets bloated with bits of code left over from uninstalled software and it can slow your system down. Also, sometimes bits of old drivers can cause conflicts with new ones and cause crashes. It doesnt hurt to back up your important data and reformat and reinstall windows once a year or so.
 
Reformatting is clearing off your entire hard drive and reinstalling again. It's usually a good idea to do a reformat and clean install before installing new service packs or after changing out a motherboard or something.
 
Reformatting is completely clearing off everything on your hard drive, to remove dead registry keys, viruses, old corrupt Operating Systems, or just to start fresh with a stable install of everything. Unless you know what you are doing and have some prior knowledge, you should NOT reformat your hard drive by yourself. If your friends tell you that they've reformatted, maybe they could do it for you.

More on what formatting is:

It clears everything on the hard drive. After a format, you can't even get into Windows anymore. The drive is blank. You have to reinstall Windows using the CD that you got. It helps when upgrading hardware, especially motherboards. Some people do it every 6 months or every year, because they think it helps their system's stability. You reformat by using an Fdisk utility (DOS-based) or by using the Windows CD that you have. I do not recommend that you format unless you are having some serious problems, like the inability to get into Windows, lockups, bad driver conflicts, and the like. It's just time consuming and frustrating because of having to replace everything.
 
Hey, you guys posted before me....

but his post was the only one here when I started. We posted at exactly the same time. How weird. :cool:
 
[Tripod]MajorPayne said:
You reformat by using an Fdisk utility (DOS-based)
Click to expand...
Um, no, fdisk is to repartition the drive. format is what you use to format a drive.

A little more info on what formatting is: All you files, all your data, sits on a disk in a file system. A file system is simply a disk structure made to keep track of where what bits go for proper retrieval ( ok, a bit more complex than that..but anyway ).

When you put a file on the disk, the file system keeps track of where the bits of the file went ( typically, in disk structures known as clusters ). One file, for referrence, can take up several clusters ( I think ntfs's default is 4k sized clusters? ), and as is often the case ,the clusters do not sit next to each other, hence the need to defrag.

By formatting, you are simply replacing that database of files and their locations with a blank one. So, under a normal format in xp, the data is still there, but there is no easy way to figure out what went where.

And that, is pretty much all I know about disk subsystems. I think it's all accurate, but someone please correct me if needed.
 
Yea, today my computer froze on me while playing counter-strike (as usual), and after it wouldnt allow me load up windows, it'll just say "\windows\system32\something". So i called DELL and they told me i had to reformat my comp, so they lead me through it and it fixed the problem. So i learned how to reformat my comp before i was able to read this forum, so thanks anyways.
 
haze said:
Yea, today my computer froze on me while playing counter-strike (as usual), and after it wouldnt allow me load up windows, it'll just say "\windows\system32\something". So i called DELL and they told me i had to reformat my comp, so they lead me through it and it fixed the problem. So i learned how to reformat my comp before i was able to read this forum, so thanks anyways.
Click to expand...

Dell lead you through a reformat over the phone...... right.

Reformats takes hours to do and no DELL support person I ever talked to would even have a clue on how to get started on that. you sure it was a reformat?
 
Maybe the dell tech support guy told him to use his recovery disk to reformat and reinstall the operating system...dunno..maybe its too early for me :(

OldMX
 
That_Sound_Guy said:
Dell lead you through a reformat over the phone...... right.

Reformats takes hours to do and no DELL support person I ever talked to would even have a clue on how to get started on that. you sure it was a reformat?
Click to expand...

I'm calling "shens" as well...but I was thinking more on the lines of "How can someone be a member of the forums, and not know what re-formatting is". But yes, re-formatting over the phone is strange...especially when they are paid on the number of calls they close.
 
Dell computers have that recovery partition don't they? Maybe they walked him through something with that. Although personally i've never used it so I couldn't tell you what it does or how it works. Maybe the tech support guy said it was reformatting because he didn't know any better ;) :rolleyes:
 
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