When to reformat?

[bsfins]

I know this question came up recently,or something along the same lines....

When do you know,it's about time just to reformat your computer?

I've had this computer since August 2004,I've not reformated it yet...But I've been thinking about doing it...a few things are going a little buggy...

[Lee]

When I had an older system, I would reformat it every year or so since it would tend to get slower and slower as time progressed.

But, now that I have a new machine, I doubt I will have to reformat it ever since its showing no signs of slowing down.

I have gotten reformatting down to a science now.  I can format and be back up and running without any data loss and the same exact programs in less than 2 hours.

[Brian Fein]

I have had my computer almost 5 years now and never reformatted once.  It still runs like a champ and I have a ton of crap in it too.

External hard drives are my friend.

[Frimp]

I reformattedmy HP laptop, and it works fine now.

[bsfins]

I reformatted..just to have the windows installer freeze up...and never get past the part of....Whats' your computer's name...Having to go get a new copy of windows,and installing it....So I'm sitting here now with Windows XP pro..and 90% of my stuff not installed back onto the computer...

[Lee]

I had the same situation, once.  Check your CPU and case heat.... (I do realize that you used to run the computer just fine, so this may not be your problem at all).

I removed the case sides to temporarily fix the problem, but I had to later install case fans.

[Lee]

oh, and of course, reformat it again...  start from scratch on the reinstall, not from where it left off... trust me on that one

[bsfins]

Ahh too late now....Already started from scratch...It's running fine now...The wizard froze at the same spot....I re - did it 3 times..and it kept freezeing in the same exact spot....

That was XP home....I'm not running Pro...