Honey, I formatted the computer again

1st May 2010, New Delhi

I formatted my computer today, again.

It’s a frequent occurrence for me. It helps me in keeping my system up to date and working lightning fast.

But most people I know do not like to format their computer even if they know the advantages that come from it, or even when it is apparent that their computer is on the verge of failure. They are intimidated or at the very least reluctant to format their computer.

This reluctance usually stems from lack of knowledge about how to format your computer, lack of experience in doing it & reluctance to invest the extra effort in formatting the system rather than repair it. What people forget is that formatting not just helps in making a computer work fast and without glitches, but it also forces you to take a backup of your important data which is a very important exercise in itself. It is better to format & correct any glitches in the system when it is working rather than waiting for it to break down before trying to salvage something from it.

It is damn easy to format your computer if you are prepared. I thought I would write a basic procedure for the same just in case I need to reference it ;) and to help some of the technology disabled people I know.

You need the following basic things to make sure you can format without any pain incurred after the formatting

Requirements

• An External Hard Disk with more free space than the data you have in your computer.
• List of & Setup files of Drivers & Softwares to be installed in one folder
• A list of things you need to backup for sure from C Drive (As you format only C Drive). Make sure not to forget to take the backup of softwares like outlook & bookmarks of firefox.
• Windows Installation DVD/USB
• 3 Hours of Free Time

Procedure

• First & Foremost thing to do is to arrange for a hard disk which has more free space than the amount of data you have. It is a good practice to keep a hard disk specifically for this purpose. I have 2. One for backup, other for backup of backup :)

• Second thing to do is to get all the drivers & softwares you require in one single place. If you are installing windows 7, only drivers you usually need are the video card, touchpad & chipset drivers. rest get detected automatically and do not create a fuss usually. software setups are an important part and it is always better to keep setups in external hard disk in case any software goes corrupt

• Third thing to do is to make a list of things you need to take backup from C Drive. Good place to start are desktop and my documents folder. Apart from the data folders don’t forget to take a backup of softwares like outlook, firefox & sticky notes. Formatting C Drive removes all programs so it is better to take backup of data for all programs you would like to configure as they were before

• If your computer only has a C Drive it may be a good idea to partition C Drive to contain at least 16 to 30 GB of space and put in the rest of space as D Drive or more and after that use D Drive to store your data. This is because if windows gets corrupted by a virus or other things, it is only the C Drive which gets corrupted, which can then be formatted leaving other drives untouched

• Now that you have your backup in place & softwares ready to install after a fresh windows installation you are ready to put in your windows DVD and boot up from it to install a fresh copy of windows

• After windows installation is done, install the drivers, then the softwares & after that copy back the backup data.

Now your computer is faster & better with a backup in place in case anything goes wrong with your computer.