PC WEENIES: Tech Toons and Reviews | Poll: How Often Do You Rebuild Your System from Scratch?

Poll: How Often Do You Rebuild Your System from Scratch?

[polldaddy poll=5499945]

I’m currently thinking about rebuilding both my desktop and laptop Macs from scratch. I’m doing this for three reasons:

to re-evaluate the software I have on my systems. (i.e. removing old apps I don’t use anymore.)
to remove old cruft
to increase overall system performance

As I entertained the notion of sacrificing the better part of week doing said task, my curiosity got the best of me.

How many of you rebuild your hard drives, and if so do you do it on any regular interval? Also, do you move old data off your main drive? And if so, how often?

Kindly share your thoughts in the comments below. Thanks!

–Krishna

Krishna September 13, 2011 hard drive, hard drive maintenance, hardware, poll

These beautiful and intelligent people wrote

Kevin Rubin Reply
September 13, 2011 at 10:24 am
I used to do it all the time, back before about 2001, at least, with my PC systems. I always played with operating systems, installing, repartitioning, installing another and so forth… It was fun, and I never had valuable data anyway… During the Windows 95 beta test, I was getting a new install CD from Microsoft on a weekly basis, so every week I’d reformat and reinstall, then send bug reports…

I guess the last time I did anything like that was switching between Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X on my old grape iMac. But not a single time since then…

I have a cheap Compaq laptop that I bought in October or November last year, I might tinker with like that again. But I’m too lazy. Almost any waking hours I’d rather spend outside exploring the city, and I’m only inside if I’m sick these days…
Antoine Gagnon Reply
September 13, 2011 at 11:31 am
I did select When my HD goes kaput, but the real reason would be: When anything major is affecting my usage of the Computer (OS issue, lag, etc…)

I know I should do it more often, but I really like the motto “Don’t fix it if it ain’t broken”

Plus I have 3 different backups being done a daily basis (one being online). So I’m not too worried about a system crash.

I also have my older computer that can run CS5 properly, so if my main PC crashes, I can switch to my old PC if I need to finish on a strip quickly and then focus of fixing the PC
EricReply
September 13, 2011 at 11:40 am
My work Mac has a major bug with Adobe applications. None of them will open files that are in my home folder. I’m pretty sure it’s a permissions issue from a previous update from Leopard to Snow Leopard where I migrated thousands of files and manually changed ownership and permissions on them using terminal. (The only way to take ownership with a new Active Directory account the way it went.)

So now I’m planning on getting an SSD drive for the boot drive and then keeping my user files elsewhere. Active Directory won’t let me put my home folder elsewhere on a second drive, so I’ll just keep all my work files on a separate volume rather than the boot drive. That has the advantage of only having to re-install my apps after a clean install. No need to manage user files as well.
Alex Reply
September 13, 2011 at 11:48 am
Only time I rebuilt my mac was when the hard drive failed- but even then I mostly restored it from my Time Machine backup. Did a bit of cleaning up after updating to Leopard, Snow Leopard and Lion, but I didn’t feel the need to start afresh with an updated OS.
My PC is a different story though- usually reinstall the thing one a year or so. It’s not my main machine, but a fresh install of it sorts out any drop in speed. Somewhat annoying though.
Hexi HamaskiReply
September 13, 2011 at 12:04 pm
I re image my windows seven drive the moment i notice a drop in performance, this can range between 1 month and several, currently this system has run with relative stability for about 5 months, but its nearing another wipe, i install vital programs to an E: drive rather than my C: to speed up the format, also i have saved the necessary registry files. because i’m a gamer i have many of my video games save to my dropbox folder, its a free service where anything in your local folder is uploaded to a like folder on dropbox.com for the games that insist on saving to %appdata% i back those files up manually, all in all the whole process takes about 45 mins – 1 hour to complete.
packeteerReply
September 13, 2011 at 6:48 pm
depends whether you’re talking about Windows or Mac :)

Windows = every 6 months
Mac = When I upgrade OS
kaitou Reply
September 13, 2011 at 7:56 pm
I rarely do the Linux machines from scratch, even on upgrades; they do get a from scratch install when I re-purpose them. The OpenBSD machines get from-scratch upgrades, though.
Michael Reply
September 13, 2011 at 8:47 pm
I tend to rebuild my system from the ground up every 3 to 4 years. I do update components when possible (a larger faster hard drive and Windows 7 last Spring).

When I was a gamer I might update from the ground up every 2 to 3 years…

ArrOOoo!
Michael MedlinReply
September 17, 2011 at 4:36 pm
I’m always trying to break windows, so I wipe my computer pretty ofthen, and since I keep all my information on secondary drive, I have no problems wiping often.