reformating hard drive...again

[Guy]

Wirelessly posted (SamsungA680...Uknowit: Samsung-SPHA680 AU-MIC-A680/2.0 MMP/2.0)

how long does a typical hard drive last and how many times can it be reformated? i've had this pc for 3 years and reformated 4 times. can it take much more?

[Ted]

Wirelessly posted (SamsungA680...Uknowit: Samsung-SPHA680 AU-MIC-A680/2.0 MMP/2.0)

how long does a typical hard drive last and how many times can it be reformated? i've had this pc for 3 years and reformated 4 times. can it take much more?

hard drive life varies. can be as little as a year, sometimes as much as 5 or even 7 years. there is really no way to be sure. best bet is keep a backup of your documents on a cd or other backup medium.

reformatting, AFAIK, does not shorten the life of the drive, it's just a pain in the you-know-what to set everything back up again.

some drives will sound "clunkier" as they near the end of their life, if you notice a change in the sound that may be a clue that it's going to go soon, but not always.

[Guy]

Wirelessly posted (SamsungA680...Uknowit: Samsung-SPHA680 AU-MIC-A680/2.0 MMP/2.0)

thanks ted. i wasn't sure my computer was going to make it but the reformat worked. YAY! no more virus :) it sucks i gotta set everything back up though. :(

[Ted]

Wirelessly posted (SamsungA680...Uknowit: Samsung-SPHA680 AU-MIC-A680/2.0 MMP/2.0)

thanks ted. i wasn't sure my computer was going to make it but the reformat worked. YAY! no more virus :) it sucks i gotta set everything back up though. :(

yep. that's the pain in the ass part. you can do it.

[Admiral Kirk]

I wouldn't be too worried about reformatting being an intensive strain on the drive. Generally, "quick" reformats only rewrite a new directory structure that allows all the files to be overwritten, creating a "blank disk". That's why old files can sometimes be recovered after a drive has been reformatted. Only if you're using an intensive program that "wipes" the entire drive's contents will it be strenuous on it.

[Guy]

Well, the reason for the reformat was to rid it of a virus. I had to do the "complete wipe out" to make sure it was cleansed. Seems to be running well again. :D

[Admiral Kirk]

Well, the reason for the reformat was to rid it of a virus. I had to do the "complete wipe out" to make sure it was cleansed. Seems to be running well again. :D
Bad viruses!

Actually, your operating system can be infected with every last worm out there...a "quick" reformat will take care of it all. Quick reformat and a Windows (I'm assuming that's your OS) installation doesn't carry over anything from your old installation.

On a side note, I bought a 160 GB drive from Best Buy last week and transferred my 12 page term paper on there...only to return to my room Thursday morning (23 hours before it was due) to find that the drive was screeching and there were error messages-galore on the screen. I was out of ink and paper so I didn't have a hard copy of the paper. Lost the whole thing, and had to work 18 straight hours to try and rewrite it. Talk about one of those "apocalypic nightmares" of academia. And Western Digital is making me pay for the return shipping on the defective drive.

[jared982]

I read somewhere on the internet that the average time before a virus is on your computer after you reformat is 4 min. So you have 4 min to run to install Norton, McAfee, or Kaspersky (the worlds best (what i have))

[ctnchrisw]

I read somewhere on the internet that the average time before a virus is on your computer after you reformat is 4 min. So you have 4 min to run to install Norton, McAfee, or Kaspersky (the worlds best (what i have))
You should be fine as long as you have a firewall and arent browsing using IE with the security all the way down. If you are running xp, slipstreaming sp2 into your install disk will save alot of time. Or go the route I do, get norton ghost, get it up perfect, and then make a restore image.