Hard Drive Reformatting Should be Part of Regular PC Maintenance

In order to keep my PC performing optimally, there are several actions that I take on a regular basis. First of all, I defrag my hard drive once a month. I also have an antispyware program that is always running which watches for any infections in real time. It also performs a disc scan daily. In addition, I have another antispyware program that I use once a week which scans for anything that my other program may have missed. Lastly, on an annual basis I reformat, or wipe, my hard drive to ensure my PC is performing at optimum capacity.

This is a relatively easy action if you have the basic steps down and allow for some prep time. Reformatting the hard drive consists of fully removing everything from it and beginning again with a clean slate. Of course there are important and necessary things on your hard drive which you’ll need to access in the future so it’s absolutely vital to create a backup of all files, programs and plug-ins. Here is a list of things that I back up:

• Bookmarks and Favorite Links
  
• Dreamweaver Site Definitions
  
• Email (Outlook)
  
• Financial Information (Microsoft Money)
  
• Fonts
  
• My Documents
  
• My Downloads (Programs that were downloaded without a physical disc)
  
• My Music (My iTunes library and other MP3’s)
  
• My Photos
  
• Photoshop Plug-ins
  

For my PC, I have two hard drives. There’s my active hard drive (C drive) and one for backup and archive use. For this purpose, I use an internal hard drive. External hard drives are often slow.

I recommend that once you have backed up your vital data, like those listed above, it’s important to check if you have physical copies of your software. An example of this, and most importantly, would be your operating system. Once you’ve wiped your hard drive, the operating system and any other programs or software will be gone.

Now that everything has been backed up, you’ll begin the reformatting process. It can vary depending on what operating system you are using. Personally, I use Windows XP and wiping my hard drive is pretty simple. You insert the Windows XP CD, reboot and the steps are basically laid out for you. There will be a question which appears asking if you want to format the drive with a warning that data will be lost and you select “yes”.

Check out the Microsoft website for more information on how to wipe your hard drive depending on your operating system:
http://www.microsoft.com

If you do this once a year, you will notice the increase in your PC’s performance. It’s also a good idea to back up your important files frequently throughout the year. That way, when it comes time to do your annual reformatting, the backup will not take as long.