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Reformatting

Rear Admiral ChocoRear Admiral Choco I wanna be an owl, Jerry!Owl York CityRegistered User regular
edited March 2008 in Help / Advice Forum
If I were to reformat my computer, how can I specify a way to backup my files beyond setting it aside in other storage? I don't have another hard drive available and all I have otherwise is an almost full USB key and some blank CDs I never got around to using.

Rear Admiral Choco on

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    whuppinswhuppins Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    If you're talking about a true format, there is no way to preserve your data without backing it up somewhere. Burn some CDs of the files you want to keep and copy them back after the format.

    Dell, Gateway, etc. pre-built systems typically have a 'non-destructive' format and OS reinstall option, but this isn't really a format so it may not fix whatever problem you're trying to deal with.

    I guess it depends on why you think you need to reformat. Short answer is that by definition, you're losing all your data when you format. If you don't have another machine, or some flash memory, or some CD-R/DVD-R's, or another HDD to throw your files onto, you're out of luck.

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    Nitsuj82Nitsuj82 Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Unless you have a spare partition sitting around, I'd warm up that burner.

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    Sir CarcassSir Carcass I have been shown the end of my world Round Rock, TXRegistered User regular
    edited March 2008
    What I've always done is partition my drive to have a part set aside for Windows and related files, and then everything else. When I reformat, I only have to reformat that Windows partition. All my other files stay on the other partition. I just have to reinstall programs, but I'd have to do that anyway.

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    whuppinswhuppins Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Sir Carcass wrote: »
    What I've always done is partition my drive to have a part set aside for Windows and related files, and then everything else. When I reformat, I only have to reformat that Windows partition. All my other files stay on the other partition. I just have to reinstall programs, but I'd have to do that anyway.

    Good advice, but just to clarify for the OP, it's too late to do this now. Generally speaking, repartitioning is just as destructive as re-formatting.

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    Rear Admiral ChocoRear Admiral Choco I wanna be an owl, Jerry! Owl York CityRegistered User regular
    edited March 2008
    I guess you could consider this solved, I was asking for a friend but I don't think he needs to know anymore. Still, it's good to know for later. Thanks!

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Penny Arcade Forums› Help / Advice Forum