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Reformatting your PC a lot of times.

WaXT

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Is it true that when you reformat your PC allot of times, it could be a reason for PC damage?
Let's say I reformat my PC for 1x/2 months. Could it damage my PC?
 
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No. It's totally safe. It's normal I/O operation on HDD.
 

WaXT

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Are you sure even on low systems?

Because I hate it when people use my "reformatting every 2 months" as a reasonfor my pc to break.
 
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It's a machine. HDD spins and move's its heads, electricity flows,fans blow etc
It doesn't care if its reinstalling OS or playing blob volley.
 

WaXT

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Thanks. I knew it all along. Just making sure. :D
 
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Are you sure even on low systems?

Because I hate it when people use my "reformatting every 2 months" as a reasonfor my pc to break.

Stop associating with those people. Immediately.
 

WaXT

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I know. And some shops say that it could be a reason. LOL
and those shops happen to have those beast hardwares.
 
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I know. And some shops say that it could be a reason. LOL
and those shops happen to have those beast hardwares.

Hmm, I have serious doubts about buying hardware from a shop which I don't trust to be able to actually use it. Or worse, troubleshoot it when it fails. But that's just my €0,02
 

shevanel

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My local pc shop is stuck on S775. Whenever I go in there for something I can hear all the guys in the back watching youtube videos containing i7's and the sound of ham being used to drive nails is usually what sends me out running.

I once went in there with 2x2gb of DRR3 and asked if he would take it in trade for a 1GB stick of 667 or 2x512 (I was in a bind and other pc shops in the past always traded with me) and he told me he wasn't sure what the DDR3 should be used with... I uh'd
 

WaXT

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my local pc shop is stuck on s775. Whenever i go in there for something i can hear all the guys in the back watching youtube videos containing i7's and the sound of ham being used to drive nails is usually what sends me out running.

I once went in there with 2x2gb of drr3 and asked if he would take it in trade for a 1gb stick of 667 or 2x512 (i was in a bind and other pc shops in the past always traded with me) and he told me he wasn't sure what the ddr3 should be used with... I uh'd

lmfao
 
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one thing you gotta learn....is to learn about computers yourself before trusting what shops say. Some are good but take even Geeksquad. Sent them a computer my friends mom sent in b4 i cld touch it, got it back with them saying the mobo was dead. I took out on 8800Ultra(was in SLI) and put the bottom on in the top PCI-E slot and walla...computer works.

So in reality you can only trust TPU and your own knowledge :D
 

de.das.dude

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The only component in terms of "wear and tear" by formatting is the hard drive.

The most substantial study of HDD failures I know of, Google's Failure Trends in a Large Disk Drive Population shows that yes, HDD utilization does impact the life of hard drives (read under Utilization starting on page 4 of the study)—the impact is not as simple as you might think, so read for more info.

I can think of very few circumstances under which I'd recommend performing a full format (not a "quick format") every two months.
 

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i have known that a HDD can be safely "fully" formatted a limited no of times. after that the magnetic sectors are known to get &^&*&#$-fied.
 
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i have known that a HDD can be safely "fully" formatted a limited no of times. after that the magnetic sectors are known to get &^&*&#$-fied.

Completely untrue. Formatting a hard drive doesn't utilize it any differently than normal use. Formatting a drive repeatedly will not shorten its lifespan.
 
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I think what you mean is a low level format. This is not the case with our common "formats"
 
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Even a low-level format is simply a rearrangement of the magnetic tracks. Yes, there is a limited number of times, but I doubt you can reach that limit while constantly formatting for the rest of your life.
 
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Even a low-level format is simply a rearrangement of the magnetic tracks. Yes, there is a limited number of times, but I doubt you can reach that limit while constantly formatting for the rest of your life.

Again, completely untrue. There's no such thing as a "low level" format anymore. That hasn't existed since MFM hard drives. When people speak of a low level format nowadays, they are simply referring to the process of writing zeros or "zero filling" the entire drive, which isn't any more strenous on a drive than anything else.
 
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Again, completely untrue. There's no such thing as a "low level" format anymore. That hasn't existed since MFM hard drives. When people speak of a low level format nowadays, they are simply referring to the process of writing zeros or "zero filling" the entire drive, which isn't any more strenous on a drive than anything else.

There is nothing untrue about my statement. The magnetic tracks are being rearranged, just like any writing operations.
 
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LLF (low level formatting) is still done—but at the factory. Utilities exist allowing end users to perform low level formats as well, though it is sometimes not possible to do so outside of the factory.
 

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Are you sure even on low systems?

Because I hate it when people use my "reformatting every 2 months" as a reasonfor my pc to break.

I'll just throw this out there as a reason why people might say that: Full formatting also does error checking, so formatting often might show the existence of problems that you otherwise might not see for a while, so it might LOOK like the formatting is causing the error.

Really, though, you might want to ask yourself why you're formatting every 2 months. I haven't reformatted this machine for almost 4 years.
 

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More likely to get OS issue's before hardware issue due to it. You only have so many activations for a OS then ya have to phone them lol.
 

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You only have so many activations for a OS then ya have to phone them lol.

so call them. you paid for it, you are entitled to your reinstalls, its their job to make it work for you
 
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^^ It only takes a few minutes and I wouldn't call it an OS "issue."
 
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