Alright, this method may seem like using a car to crack walnuts, but if you have been using Windows 9x for quite awhile without giving an ounce of thought to ever cleaning house, then you may want to do this. For example, I’ve been running Windows 98 ever since it first came out and I have never upgraded or reformatted or anything. For those other poor saps like myself, you may wanna do this.

The basic plan of attack is this: (1) Backup Everything you need, (2) FDISK the drive, (3) Format, (4) Re-install the OS, (5) Reinstall everything you need.

One common mistake for beginners is that they think they can re-partition a hard drive without losing their data. Nope. I wish. Unless you use a third party program like PartitionMagic, doing anything in FDISK will hose your data. So, we’re going to backup everything you need first. Now, you do not need to backup your programs IF you have them on CD or diskette. For those that you downloaded from the net and installed we’ll just backup any data files or preferences, and then you’ll hose it. Don’t just find the directory of a program and Select All and Copy to another drive. If you don’t reinstall everything and you just copy crap straight, then this process won’t do you any good and stuff may not work.

Another note, don’t back up any of this stuff to diskette unless you have to or just get a kick out of it. Use a removable storage drive like a ZIP or JAZ drive, or even a CD-R or CD-RW. There are also programs out there like Easy CD Creator or DirectCD from Adaptec that will help you burn your CDs. For a later, optional step, you may want a copy of DriveImage from PowerQuest.

Let’s do this:

1. Backup your e-mail and bookmarks.
   

   If you use Eudora, then you might want to save your signature files, stationary, your mailbox files, and maybe even some of your attachments you can’t live without. Stationary is in the “Stationary” directory, signature files are in the “Sigs” directory, and your mailbox files are the *.mbx files in your main Eudora directory. Make sure you copy the *.toc files too for each of your mailboxes. Just to be safe, take the “spool” directory, too.
   For Outlook users, you only have one file to worry about. Its not in an obvious place, though. For some , it is in the WINDOWS/Application Data/Microsoft/Outlook directory. Sometimes, as it was on mine, it is in the WINDOWS/Local Settings/Microsoft/Outlook directory. The file name is outlook.pst.
   As for your bookmarks, it is pretty straightforward. If you use IE, go to your WINDOWS/Favorites folder and save it. For Netscape, go to your Netscape directory and then the “users” sub-directory. You’ll see folders for each of the usernames on your system. If there is only one, that’s it. Backup that directory. Since your cache is also in that directory, you may want to clear your cache before doing this so you don’t save a bunch of useless crap.

2. Record your ISP settings. This just requires going into your Dial-up Networking section and recording your ISP’s settings, dial-up phone number, login and password. If you use cable, then just make sure you have your drivers for your network card and save any network settings from your Network Control Panel.
3. Back up your personal data.
   Only you know where these files are on your system. Some of the more common locations are in your MY DOCUMENTS folder. There may also be some stuff in your WINDOWS/DOWNLOADED PROGRAMS folder. I have a directory on my system called DOWNLOADS which has everything I downloaded from the net. Inside your MY DOCUMENTS folder may be things like MY PICTURES, you may want to save these too. But, as I said, you should know where you store files. As a last resort, you could always run a search for files with the *.doc, *.jpg, *gif, *.mp3 and other such files you may have.

4. If you play games and sometimes save your progress for later play, you may want to find these files and save them. I am not really into this, so I don’t know how these things save your games, but it wouldn’t be a bad idea to find out if you do do this.
5. Double-Check for anything you need to backup. Just surf your drive in Explorer and see if there is anything you need. While you’re doing this and scanning directories, take notice of what’s on your system. If you’re anything like me, you’ll find programs you forgot were even on there. If you want the program after all this, make sure you either have that program on CD or that it is downloadable on the net. Like I said, once you partition, you’re crap is hosed, so now is the chance to grab it or make sure you can later.

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