When is it time to reformat your hard drive?

image by microraptor

Is your computer feeling like a dinosaur and making everything you do feel like slow motion? You’re wondering if you should buy a new system. Before you invest in a new system, maybe you should assess whether or not you need to reformat the hard drive.

Just the thought of reformatting your hard drive can strike fear in some people but sometimes this is the only solution to solve your system problems short of buying a new one.

What are the signs that might suggest you need to reformat?

1. Is your system slowing down, or getting annoying error messages?
2. Are you struggling to do simple tasks like opening or closing documents?
3. Is your software dragging?

When is reformatting a good solution?

1. If your system is less than four years old or very lightly used and five to six years old, reformatting may solve your problems.
2. If you find applications hanging up and a reinstall of the applications like Microsoft Office doesn’t change anything, it may be time to reformat.

What steps should you take in advance of reformatting your hard drive?

1. Make sure you have a complete backup and a back up that works! Nothing is worse than thinking you  will restore from an external hard drive or a cloud application like Carbonite and finding out that your back up isn’t viable.
2. Locate all of your software so that you can rapidly reinstall.
3. Keep a list of your passwords so that when you have a clean slate you can access all of your applications and accounts online.

Reformatting can be scary but partnering with an expert can help you work through the experience. Suddenly your dinosaur of a computer will feel like a brand new system!