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Reformatting Hints and tips

captainkcaptaink TexasRegistered User regular
I've had this computer for about 3 years now, have never reformatted. Performance is really starting to bog down, so maybe a reformat/reinstall windows is in order.

I'm looking for hints and tips and common mistakes to avoid. I'm nervous :P

I have:
Backed up all my media files that I care to keep to DVDs and an external HD
Backed up financial files to same
Gotten copies of the latest driver for my video card and the motherboard on there
Copied out my firefox profile and extensions using some firefox backup program
copied my precious wow install over

I continue to have the nagging feeling that I'm forgetting something, but I don't know what it would be. What else should I do?

captaink on

Posts

  • CronusCronus Registered User regular
    edited March 2009
    First, and you may already be doing this but it didn't sound like it, do you regularly backup to that external hard drive? I have SyncToy running weekly to backup all that stuff to my media center PC.

    The four things I do that you didn't mention:
    • Saved Games
    • Game Patches and Mods
    • Trillian directory
    • Outlook data

    Another would be your Steam Game Data Files. Those things can take a long time to download, so it would save you time to back them up to your external hard drive if you have the space.

    Cronus on
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  • JHunzJHunz Registered User regular
    edited March 2009
    Are you sure you have the serial keys available for all of the games and/or programs that you ever intend to reinstall? Running an application like this one to make sure wouldn't hurt.

    JHunz on
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  • FightTestFightTest Registered User regular
    edited March 2009
    I format fairly frequently.

    All I worry about is any important documents and drivers for everything.

    FightTest on
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  • captainkcaptaink TexasRegistered User regular
    edited March 2009
    JHunz wrote: »
    Are you sure you have the serial keys available for all of the games and/or programs that you ever intend to reinstall? Running an application like this one to make sure wouldn't hurt.

    Nice. I was trying to find my winamp key.

    As for other stuff, I uninstalled most of my game stuff. No saves or mods or configurations that I need to take with me, I don't figure.

    Trillian and Outlook (or their equivalents) I don't even have at all :P Gmail does all that for me now.

    captaink on
  • captainkcaptaink TexasRegistered User regular
    edited March 2009
    Everything has apparently worked out, the firefox backup utility is genius.

    The next couple days will test if I really remembered everything.

    captaink on
  • GrimReaperGrimReaper Registered User regular
    edited March 2009
    What I always do is have a mental checklist of things to back up like what has been mentioned above.

    However, I do one thing to guarantee I don't lose anything. I created a bartpe cd with symantec ghost on it, I make a ghost image of my entire drive to a spare hard disk just in-case I do forget anything. If I do then I can use the ghost explorer program to copy from the ghost image and if it is something else I can always re-ghost to the old windows install to get what I need.

    For example, here's a backup from 2007 which I'll probably be deleting soon.

    ghost.png

    GrimReaper on
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