How often you you reformat?

[Force Flow]

How often do you perform a clean install of your O/S? (98, 2000 and XP)

[Strider]

It seems whenever I do something stupid and that seems to be every 6-8 months.

[glc]

Only when it dies or I want to upgrade. I've had this load of Win2K on here now for about 2 years. Before that I had a dual boot of NT4 and 98FE running for about a year and a half. Before that it was 95B, that lasted for 3 years.

[Nuclear Krusader]

Given the infernal pain and loss of time that a reformat is, I thread carefully in my system so I don't end up reformatting.

[pillainp]

Windows 98 SE: more often than I care to think about (about every two-three months).
Windows 2K Pro: Fresh install over the 98SE box, no reformats in 8 months.
WinXP Pro: Fresh install over Win2K Pro. No reformats or reinstalls in 3 months now.

[RayH]

Get a copy of a disk imaging program, like Norton Ghost, Drive Image or some such. They're worth every penny. Ghost can be found as part of the package with certain motherboards. Older, but still useful versions of Drive Image can be had for $35.

I image my computer before and after any major changes. If I don't like the changes, I don't uninstall, I just restore. I haven't reformatted since I got my copy of Drive Image.

My brother is now comfortable to allow his son to come home from college and load the father's computer up with a bunch of nonsense. The father saves his image. And save's the kid's image. The father restores his computer to as it was when the kid leaves. When the kid comes home again, he puts back the kid's image.

It sounds complicated. But it really isn't. And it solves the problem of "What did you do to my computer?"

[bailey]

never sence I got xp installed

w98 at least twice a year

[TwoRails]

Only twice on my Win 98 box. Once when I tried ME for a month and didn't like it. Once about a year ago or so after butchering a Registry spring-cleaning.

[not important]

Whenever I get real bored or do something real stupid. Much less since I started using Ghost. I've had XP for almost a year with no reformats.

[rs125]

When i has 98se i was formating every couple of months or so (allways getting illegal operations)..ive now had XP pro for over 6 months without any major problems

[flanzig1]

Got 98 SE and havn't had to since I got the computer 3 and half years ago. Biggest thing with 98 is to get all the crap not to start at bootup

[Dan]

I've a ton of software loaded, so I reformat as little as possible. And like Strider and not important, it's usually because of something I did without thinking.

[cameroth]

every 4 months or so.

[Hot Rod]

I used to do it about once every 6 months. More out of boredom I think.

Now, I only do it when I really need to. Haven't had to in over a year now. **knock on wood**

[doctorgonzo]

I've had XP Home for a year and a half and have only reinstalled once, due to a fatal error in the OS. Otherwise, I haven't had any reason to do so.

[catk102]

I reformat everytime when it takes me more than 3 hours to fix what I messed up specially when like today tech support tells me "do you really need that,you can work around it you know?Cause we have never seen this problem before."lol.Or I can't find the answers on the net.

[ssahl]

I've had winXP on my system now for a couple years, even changed motherboards (same chipset) video card, case, and a few more items too. Before I got winXP, there used to be a time that I was formatting my hdd like once a week. Most of that being because I was screwing it up on purpose as a learning process to help me pass my A+
thankfully those days are long gone.

[dave computer]

Whenever i mess with something and it won't work. Usually about 3 times a year on windows xp pro.

[Lord Prism]

about 3-4 times a year.

[Byte 2.0]

I can't keep the cases on my computers, nor do I keep a load of an OS on for a long period of time.

I considering my computer research machines and thus I do things with them I should not and do end up causing some problems. However, I normally end up formatting while the loaded OS is still in stable condisition. I just loaded win 2k finally on my main machine.

[mr krinkle]

Unless I have a major hardware problem I never reformat...Using W-98 SE..

[homer15]

i hardly ever reformat. only when something major happens and my pc stops functioning. so far, that's only happened once, so once every two years is my record.

[got_ammo]

I only reformat if I mess something up or new os. More times than reformatting I'm repairing stupid windows xp...

[corosus]

depends on what pc and what os i am using
when i used win 98se i'd reinstall every 6 month's to a year, but i recently switched to a dual boot system with both win2k annd linux mandrake, and i still have to see.

[HAL9000]

Hmmm.. my wifes machine originally had Win98 on it... that was installed in mid 1999... have upgraded it to WinME, but never formatted... it's still going.

My machine.... had 98 on it from it's release, upgraded to WinME. Finally in Feb of last year... I formatted to go to WinXP. Not even a month later... I messed it up really good (my mistake) and had to format and reload, but it's still going strong.