reformatting question.

I think it's about time to reformat, gotta clear a lot of gunk out. However... I have about 15 gigs of stuff that I don't want to delete. Need your help.

Does anybody know if reformatting a hard drive on a PC touches the "program files" folder in the c drive? I remember on my old comp with windows 98 that the stuff in the program files folder didn't get erased in a reformat, so I put my mp3s there.

Help is appreciated :D

Reformatting will cause you to lose your "junk". However, you can (generally) reinstall your OS over the top of the old one. Windows ME - XP work just fine doing this. But if you value your information, DO NOT REFORMAT. You can generally recover your data off a formatted drive, but it doesn't stay there. Doing a quick format of the drive simply erases the piece of the drive that carries information about where files are at, but if you do a complete format, then you lose everything.

Your best bet is to buy a cheap 10-GB drive off Ebay to store your data.

Format (with WindowsXP at least) = everything deleted in any given partition. By 'deleted' I mean ****ING GONE FOREVER. You're NEVER seeing it again.

You can, however, I think, read up on what a wonderful program called PartigionMagic can do. I do believe that it can allow you to make a separate, untouchable, 15GB section of your harddrive, for all the things you want to keep, and to format the rest.

okay guys, thanks. I have a dvd burner and some spare blank dvd roms, so i'm cutting a lot of my stuff down and am just going to burn it onto that.

though in the future i am going to want to get a second hd... that makes things so much easier... keep junk in one and the os in the other... how ownage...

If your drive is large enough, just split it. Mine is 15GB for C - windows partition. then 1 GB scratch, and the rest (80GB hd) is for my files. So I can wipe out the 15 GB partition, like MV said, and reinstall.

Like Matt said a reformat just writes over the first sectors where the file info is stored. You'd need to do a low-level format or something along that lines about 255 times to completely erase a drive to the point where an FBI - CSI computer geek couldn't recover anything.

I did an overahaul on a friends computer the other day, and yes, when formatting, all information is entirely lost. It'd behoove you to buy an additional HD. I've found that having an additional harddrive is one of the most reliable ways to ensure that despite any number of computer problems, there's a highly decreased chance of losing info on another volume.

Or you could go the external route. I recommend one of these. That's all the storage you'll need for a good long while.

I dunno if this has been said, but make a partition and pop your MP3's on there, then format your old partition.

Nos.

how do i do that, man? lol

I always make new partitions with a program called partition magic.
Not sure if it's freeware tho..
I just use the one I've got at work.

Your best bet is to buy a cheap 10-GB drive off Ebay to store your data.

No, get a dvd burner, 4.7 gigs a dvd.
Or even better, a dual layer DVD burner, over 8 gigs a dvd.