How Often Do You Reformat?


How often do you reformat your computer?  

401 members have voted

  1. 1. How often do you reformat your computer?

    • Every Few Weeks
      14
    • Every Month
      27
    • Every 2-6 Months
      80
    • Every 6-10 Months
      70
    • Every Year
      33
    • Every Few Years
      30
    • Whenever it needs it
      119
    • Reformat? Ha! (What's a reformat?)
      28


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When running Windows or BSD? Never, unless its a test system where I switch OSes often (beta, x64 builds, etc.). If it's a Linux system then every few months or so, as they seem to fall apart after daily use.

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When running Windows or BSD?  Never, unless its a test system where I switch OSes often (beta, x64 builds, etc.).  If it's a Linux system then every few months or so, as they seem to fall apart after daily use.

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I'm just curious about which filesystems you were running on linux, and what the machine was used for. Personally I have had this same reiserFS root partition since redhat9 first came out (March 31st 2003) and have used it pretty much solidly all that time, going through a few OS switches, without ever touching it. It still runs fast and well.

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I'm just curious about which filesystems you were running on linux, and what the machine was used for. Personally I have had this same reiserFS root partition since redhat9 first came out (March 31st 2003) and have used it pretty much solidly all that time, going through a few OS switches, without ever touching it. It still runs fast and well.

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Reiser is where I've always had the most trouble.

ext3, antiquated as it is, always proved more reliable.

However, to be honest, my use of Linux has diminished greatly. It's entirely possible that Reiser has reached a better state of reliability since I last used it. However my personal preference for unix systems has long been FreeBSD, and I see no reason to change in that respect.

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Whenever I need it, which usually ends up being once every few years (extra large updates, or new computer altogether).

I've noticed that if you use XP and keep it clean, it doesn't "slow down" like Windows 9x used to do. Check with msconfig now and then so you don't run something unecessary at startup and defrag drives now and then. That should do the trick really. I can't say I'm noticing much of a slowdown from since I installed XP. A large registry seemingly doesn't, and "many files" definitely doesn't, as long is it's defragged.

Those doing it every month or two are nuts! :ninja:

They must spend more time setting up their system over and over again than waiting 2 secs extra at boot for having used XP for a year. :p

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lol....try never.....I didn't format my computer since I first got it....which is like 4 years ago....

however...I will do it when I get my AMD64 3000+....:happy:...than my computer would be running like new...:happy:

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however...I will do it when I get my AMD64 3000+....:happy:...than my computer would be running like new...:happy:

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Yeah, I'd recommend it especially if it's a new motherboard & all. Not really for the speed, but because I've seen XP becoming confused when a lot of hardware is changed. If you change mobo and just re-use your drive and install, it'll re-detect a ton of hardware and chances are that something will go weird. My brother had this happen to him; XP now always complain about a weird disk controller and has had other strange stuff started occuring... So he's planning a reinstall and I have a feeling it'll fix basically everything of that weirdness.

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hardly anymore. backup is the magical word. i had 3 "newer" pcs so far which are able to run xp, one format/fresh install for each machine.

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I haven't formatted for almost 3 years now (which was when I first got my computer). And thats with a change of hard drive about a year ago, but I just did an exact copy of the old one so its effectively the same installation.

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