format c: /u

Baxter – our family laptop – got his first reformat this week. I made the mistake of trusting the “factory install” of the operating system (and all the useless utilities that go along with it) when we first got him. Things started going a bit funny by about the second week, such as:

• I couldn’t replace the default useless Notepad with Notepad2
• The screen was always very dark in Call of Duty
• Icons wouldn’t stay where I put them on the desktop – each time I rebooted, they were somewhere different
• The start menu had a very large black gap in it, where it just refused to render (that was the breaking point)

Now that I’ve reformatted, I’m noticing a considerable performance boost! Things load faster, there’s much more available RAM, and the screen is looking better (though I suspect that could be from the new drivers that were released this month). The actual rebuilt process was really fast too – maybe an hour at most. This is the 3rd computer that I’ve had where the factory install has failed within the first few weeks of having the PC (I’ll never trust them again), so I’m getting pretty good at the rebuilt. Here’s my top tips:

1. Make sure you’ve got all the drivers you need before you reformat. This is especially true for laptops, or if you have an obscure network card/modem that Windows won’t natively recognize. Without the right drivers, you’ll have no luck connecting to the net to download what you need. Copy them all to an external drive, a memory key, or even a CD-ROM, and verify that they all work (i.e. aren’t corrupt) before you take the plunge.
2. Always do a complete format and re-install – don’t bother wasting time trying to repair windows, or re-installing over the top of an existing install.
3. Backup, backup, backup! At the very least, make sure you get your mail (the .PST file for outlook users), documents (usually the “My Documents” folder), media, save-games, and any software that you’ve downloaded. If your computer has multiple users, make sure you give everyone a good chance to back their stuff up too!
4. Once you’ve reformatted, only re-install things as you need them. If you haven’t installed something after a couple weeks, chances are you’re better off without it. Remember – a clean system is a fast system.
5. Most importantly, try to keep things organized on your hard drive. For example, create a “Media” folder in the root directory, and store all your media in subfolders under that – Photos, Music, Videos, etc. I also find that a “Download” and a “Temp” folder are very useful for “working storage”.
6. Most importantly, if you don’t know what you’re doing, then ask someone who does!

In the past I’ve generally believed that computers need to be reformatted about once a year to keep them running clean, but since using Windows XP I find that this isn’t necessarily true anymore. With a bit of disicpline, you can keep your system happy and healthy for its entire life – and only reformat it when it’s time for an upgrade!