Mrs. Mecomber's Scrapbook Talking technology, computers, and the Internet… for the average computer user

Computers can last a good long time. I have an old 1984 Macintosh that still works (floppies and all), and even a few old Windows machines (98SE and ME) that are still in working order. The only problem with older machines is that the technology becomes so outdated that newer models are needed (at least for us here).

I have special computers for special functions, for every one in the family. I have my own computer that I use for business. My daughters have their own laptops for school. And the boys share a computer for their schoolwork, as well. It’s worked out nicely for us.

But… this means that I have an army of computers that I must update, maintain, fix software problems, defragment, and etc. I put a lot of time into computer maintenance around here! And today I am reformatting several of the computers. Reformatting means that I am wiping out the entire hard drive and starting from scratch (usually manufacturer’s settings for the operating system). Most PCs these days are not coming with recovery disks; they usually havea partition on the hard drive with the recovery operating system there. I hate this, actually. If the hard drive fails, your recovery system is gone, along with everything else on your hard drive (folders, photos, etc). :-p I bought a Windows XP operating system disk for one of the computers, but to purchase them for so many computers is cost-prohibitive. I am forced to be very careful with the hard drives in the computers, and to use the recovery system on the drive for a reformat.

Reformats are good. I used to do them about every year (back in the old days when I only had 1-2 computers). Over time (especially on kids’ computers) the hard drives gets clogged with tons of stuff– blurry photos of the birds at the bird feeder, birthday presents of Swiss Army watches, music files of goofy kiddy music, and more. And after time, the computer just needs a fresh start. So that’s what I am doing today. And in so doing, I am reminded of a few tips that may help you if you decide to go this route.

• Use a USB thumb drive to save files you don’t want to erase. This is much easier and faster then burning a CD.
• Rather than going through the START/ALL PROGRAMS menu and making a hand-written list of programs you need to reinstall, download the handy BelArc program. It’s free. It will generate a detailed list of all your installed programs, plus it will list your computer components, such as RAM, what kind of video card and sound card your computer has, etc. A very handy program!
• Remember when you have finished the reformat and are ready to go online, Windows XP turns off the firewall by default. The very first thing you should do after the reformat is enable the XP firewall. This way, your computer has some protection against attacks, until you can go online and download your other (better) firewall.
• I wrote a brief article Three Steps to Protect Your Computer Before You Go Online. Check it out before rigging up your Internet connection.

I believe every computer needs a good reformat every once in a while. It may be a pain, going through old files and having to save them, but the USB thumb drive makes saving so easy, and doing so encourages backing up your data, anyway. And you may find some old gems (like old baby photos) when you go through the stuff.

And it may be a pain to re-install all the programs again, but you just may discover how many old programs you no longer use and gaina lot more hard drive space. And the boost in computer performance is worth it, believe me.

Well, off I go to reformat! I have three computers to do today! :S