does it hurt a computer to format a lot? should I?

jasonz

jasonz

New Member
I finally got my laptop how i like it...Suse 11 and Vista Ultimate dual boot with perfectly sized partitions. Except for a few things, it is running as smooth as i could want it to. The only thing is that when i close the lid, it tends to restart and boot back into linux. Vista then says it recovered from an unexpected shutdown and i have tried everything it says. I dont think the problem can be fixed-pissin me off. Also, my SD card reader stopped working for some reason. I tried every form of updating drivers and troubleshooting i can think of. At one point, Vista told me that the device is not plugged in, but i used it recently before x-mas and it worked. It would be really nice to fix these problems, but i dont want to have to redownload all the software and music again.

Do you recommend a format, would it probably fix these problems. I formatted about august. Does it hurt if you format a HD too much.

Thanks for any replies.

-Jason
 
Obiovusly the dual boot there isn't configured correctly now seeing various problems appearing. Simply reformatting generally doesn't hurt a drive any more then copying large files to it and then deleting them over and over like temporary video captures of some size.

Defragging a drive foloowing first seeing all programs installed and peridically when seeing a rise in fragmentation helps maintain the health of the one or more OSs installed. But Apparently Vista is now getting knocked around a bit to see devices not being fully detected where restoring it back to factory condition should see that all cleared up.
 
I dont see how the dual boot would be configured incorrectly. It has worked fine for a while and kinda just started happening about a month ago. Would the dual boot affect devices working? Even if they worked ok at the beginning.

thanks
 
It sounds more like Windows was goobered somehow and is now running into device detection problems. You will have to look over the changes made software wise to see if you can isolate the program(s) installed more recently.

Unfortunately Vista no longer sees the repair install option seen with XP and after one month's time forget using a restore point to go back before the offending program or driver set was installed if that is found to be the cause. Simply dual booting Vista with XP sees the loss of Vista's restore points while it shouldn't be with Linux.
 
freakin sd card reader still doesnt work after a clean install. I havent closed the lid though-dont know if that problem was fixed
 
It troubles if you format your HD too much. How many time is too much? I thought it must be hundreds of times. So don't worry about your case, just format your HDD.
 
I had the same problem with my dual boot. Except I had ubuntu 7. and a desktop. When you start up the computer it automatically chooses ubuntu and will time out ot choose it, if I wanted xp i had to scroll down and click on it. I wish it would automatically boot with XP and if i wanted linux i could change to it. But i dont think there is a way to fix that. I just hated how i would install a driver or soemthing and i had to restart, since my compouter was restarting i would leave the room and grab something and come back and it would be on linux and i would have to reboot again. But i just got a new comp and havnt put dual boot on there. probly wont. dont use it enough.
 
On a dual boot with two versions or two editions of Windows you can set which one will be the default either by an edit of the boot loader(BCDedit for Vista) or the boot tab in the msconfig utility. But for Windows and Linux or any other combo of OSs you are crossing OS platforms where a 3rd party intermediary tool would be the item needed.

When trying out some various unversal type loaders one excellent tool was to simply boot up with a ubuntu boot manager floppy. You then choose the OS to load by simply choosing the partition it was on. That was prior to Vista's release and a little hard to find at this time due to the newer boot images now seen.

Unfortunately since no dsl drivers are still found for dsl here I ended up with two versions of Windows instead. But fiber optics is coming sometime that may finally see...
 
Sounds like the switch seen on most displays whenever you fold the display down into the closed position. Generally that should be putting the unit into standby mode if not seeing it shutdown.
 
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