Formatting
Your Hard Disk
It’s a
scary task. But not if all your data is backed up, and you have the
installation disks and drivers at hand
Formatting a hard disk is
meant to be a constructive task, but it can turn out to be quite
destructive. It’s amazing how quickly one can wipe out lakhs of rupees
worth of software and invaluable data with a simple Format command. Yet,
it needn’t be. With proper planning it can be quite painless.
Why do you need to
format?
A hard disk off the assembly line is just a mass of magnetic media. You
need to arrange the media into proper sectors and clusters so that
information can be properly stored and retrieved by the operating system.
This process of structuring the media is known as formatting and is
essentially the same for floppy disks and hard disks. And it’s
also the same every time you format a disk. The first time, your hardware
supplier will take care of this before delivering the system to you.
As you keep using a hard
disk, you keep writing to it. You are “writing” whether you are adding
files or data, or deleting. Repeated writing may cause some errors on the
disk surface—though it really shouldn’t. Power failures and people
tripping over the computer cables is another reason for data storage
problems.
The way file tables,
Windows registries and system information are stored is that when you
delete a file or system setting, it doesn’t actually get removed from
your hard disk—it only becomes invisible to the user. Over a period of
time such “lost” information can begin to create problems, including
the infamous “Fatal Error” of Windows.
To get the hard disk to
work again without errors, you can format it. Many computer experts
suggest that you format your hard disk every one to three months depending
on your usage. They say that even if you aren’t facing any problems,
your computer will work faster after that. But it’s up to you. If your
PC is giving you fatal errors, then you need to format.
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Take
backups
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First, foremost and
most importantly, backup everything. Copy everything to another
hard disk, recordable CDs, Zip Drive, magnetic tapes or floppies,
in order of preference (based on reliability, speed of operation
and convenience). If you are short of backup space or are in a
hurry, you can copy selected folders.
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If you are well
organized and have all your data files neatly organized in
distinct folders, such as My Documents, you can take a back up
of only those folders. Otherwise you need to back up all
folders that could have data files.
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You will also
need to backup your e-mail messages and address books which
might be in a folder such as c:\windows\application
data\Microsoft\outlook.
Backup
any folders that you share with others over a network.
If you frequently
download programs from the Internet, it’s a good idea to have a
separate folder for these and make a copy before formatting the
hard disk.Copy all or selected fonts from the c:\windows\fonts
folder if there are any special fonts that you want to make sure
you don’t lose.
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Windows,
Microsoft Office, PageMaker and almost all application
programs will have to be reinstalled after
formatting—copying them back from the backup won’t work.
So you must have the installation disks or CDs before you
start formatting. After a fresh installation, special settings
of options or customizations will be lost and you’ll have to
redo these.
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Remember to
keep the driver disks for your printer, sound card, CD-ROM
drive, modem, network card and other devices handy; you’ll
need them all.
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If you are
using any special software packages, follow the instructions
with the package—you may need to uninstall the package so
that you will be able to install it again after formatting.
After taking the
backup, check out the backup disks and make sure everything is OK.
Check all the Windows and other installation disks that you will
need, say a quick prayer and proceed with the formatting.
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What’s all the scare
about?
Formatting a hard disk is a simple enough procedure, but one that should
not be taken lightly. When you format, everything on the disk is
lost—you end up with a clean slate. The programs that you use, the
e-mail messages, the games that you downloaded from the Internet and even
the Windows operating system—they’re all gone. Erasing all the
contents of a disk simply removes all the data but does not disturb the
formatting. The latter erases everything and recreates the formatting
structure. So if everything is gone, you’ll have to put it back after
formatting, which can be quite a job. And no matter how careful you are,
something will be lost forever in the ethereal cyberheaven. So you have to
backup all your data (see box).
Format time
Double-click on My Computer and right-click on the icon of your hard disk
and select Format. Check the Full radio button and click on Start. This
will work for any hard disk except the one you booted from, usually C. To
format this hard disk, you will either have to go to a DOS prompt or
restart your computer from a floppy disk (the Startup disk that you
created while installing Windows is a good choice) or a bootable CD.
The DOS command is:
format c: /s /v.
The /s option copies the system files and the /v option lets you specify a
volume label (name) for the hard disk.
Start from scratch
Now you have a blank hard disk with more free space than ever before.
Start off with installing Windows and then the application programs such
as MS Office or whatever software you use.
The next step is to restore
your backup. If you simply copied the files to floppies, this step isn’t
necessary. But if you used a Zip drive or a CD-writer, you’ll need to
install that first. Make sure that you restore files from the backup to
the correct folders on your hard disk.
Run all the programs and
make sure they’re working all right. Set the options again and you
should be ready to roll. Load all the required drivers for the printer,
modem and any other peripheral you use.
The alternative to
formatting
If you’re scared enough not to format your hard disk, what should you do
instead? Run a Scandisk followed by Disk Defragmenter. If either of these
reports errors that could not be corrected, then you probably need to
format the hard disk. If you think that your Windows registry has become
cluttered with redundant entries (this usually happens when you install
and un-install several programs), try a shareware such as regclean.exe
(available for download from http://www. winfiles.com). This should take
care of routine problems. If you still keep getting fatal error messages,
go ahead and format. |
