Partitioning/back ups/cock ups/re-formatting

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nextrainsgone

New Member
Hello Computer experts, can you help me.

How i admire you because I just seem to go from one problem to another, still can you fly an Airbus 321(dont have any probs with that!)?

PARTITIONS
why do folk partition their hard drive and should i be doing mine?

I understand it might be a good idea to to put all the programme files on there, any comments please.

Which brings me onto
RE-FORMATTING
Do all you experts regularly re-format? I would do it more often if I could manage back ups properly and not have the hassle of loading all the other dirvers and software as well-- is there any advice you can give me about this. Where could i stick all this stuff so i could just transfer it easily-- i have CD/DVD drives and a 100 gb external hard drive.

Ghost seems to be the flavour of the month for back ups, anybody got any comments on that or better ideas.(Ghost seems to be complicated) Also have Nero which seems Ok for my d0cuments back up i did the other day

I should add that both my son and i have laptops and we have had no end of trouble with slow performance and lock ups-- i have follwed the advice i found on here and loaded avg-zone alarm-spybot-adaware etc and it seems to have cured a few things but we would like to be able to reformat easliy so any advice would be welcomed.

My son has bought a fan to put under his laptop which seems to make no difference at all--any comments on fans

I thank you and sorry if all this has been covered before

Captain Jon
 
Some prefer tp reformat a drive yearly just see the faster response with a fresh installation of Windows on a clean partition. If you are running laptops that came with a recovery disk that would be needed to restore any problems that couldn't repaired by other means. If your laptops are running good regularly maintainence such as defragmenting hard drives there will help keep them running better. But if you are seeing problems at some point reformatting a drive may be the advice given especially if found with an infection by a virus or otherwise.

To reformat a drive and reinstall the operating system you would need two things on a portable. The first mentioned earlier is the recovery disk provided by the manufacturer. The second is the installation disk for the OS. The first to ask here however is which version of Windows if Windows is the current operating system being used? A version of XP will only the installation disk where you boot from that to detect, delete or create partitions, and even perform a repair install if needed at some point.
 
Generally prebuilt systems portable and desktops alike have a hidden recovery partition for mother board drivers and softwares. If that isn't restored when using let's say an XP installation disk you would have to download the appropiate drivers for the SMbus, memory cotrollers, etc. to see them run properly.

If you know someone who has worked on prebuilds and reformatted drives on them have them take you through step by step until you are familiiar with the process. At times it can quite a bit harder to describe how to troubleshoot problems that may come up during an installation. Being coached through a few times will make it easier for you to reformat drives and install Windows on your own. Reformat of drives and installing the operating system and softwares does take a bit time for each system that would have to be set aside.
 
thanks for that but isnt there some way of saving all the drivers onto a DVD or similar so you can load them all in one go as the manufacturers cd seems to
 
nextrainsgone said:
thanks for that but isnt there some way of saving all the drivers onto a DVD or similar so you can load them all in one go as the manufacturers cd seems to
Click to expand...

Yes you can put all data you want to save on a DVD or cd, but you will have to reinstall it manually. There is not automatic merge or anything.



nextrainsgone said:
still can you fly an Airbus 321
Click to expand...

I believe the term is manage... as the computer is flying the dam thing.
Whats the industry term scarebus?
 
The way to save driver and software updates for hardwares and softwares alike is to first create folders for each one just like you would see subfolders under a main directory title like Program Files, MyDocs, etc. in order to separate and organize. You would download and save updates for each in those folders designated for each one. Then you use the browser or Windows Explorer with some burning softwares and drag the main directory right into the project window. Every sub folder will be seen in a column on the side generally when clicking on the "+" sign next to the main folder name.

With all drivers/updates burned to a data dvd as the method over cd-r/rw when the total amount goes over 700mb you would still have use the update's installer if one is included with an update or let Windows hardware detection prompt for drivers once a device has been detected. Then the last option of the add/remove hardwares is when having to manually select the type of hardware being installed. The backed up drivers on disk simplify things by having them there before Windows is reinstalled. It also saves download and transfer from one system to another since one is down for reformat.
 
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