how to: hard drives

davemystic · Post by **davemystic** » Sun Sep 18, 2005 5:39 pm

I am most interested to get opinions and info on the subject of totally erasing memory on a 40g hard drive. I recently found out that hard drives have a comparatively short lifespan [4 years I hear] and I would love to hear that there is a means of revitalizing a hard drive if this is true.:driving:

orangesox1 · Post by **orangesox1** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 1:26 am

davemystic wrote: I am most interested to get opinions and info on the subject of totally erasing memory on a 40g hard drive. I recently found out that hard drives have a comparatively short lifespan [4 years I hear] and I would love to hear that there is a means of revitalizing a hard drive if this is true.:driving:

Hard drives have a much longer life span the four years, in all my computers I have never had to replace a hard drive. and I started in 1985 with a 286. As far a re formatting the hard drive, it's a good thing to do as you get rid of all the crap on it, if you want to keep everything then buy another hard drive and have a split a 40g hard drive isn't very big so you probably need to buy another 40g at least. If you do that you can transfer all you want off your old hard drive and store it on your new one while you re format the old one.

Hope that helps, If you use your computer a lot though or have teenages you need a bigger hard drive anyway.

CARLA · Post by **CARLA** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 7:08 pm

I agree with Orangesox1, unless your having noticable problems with your hard drive there is no need to replace it. Reformatting it is up to you, it will get rid of junk and give you a clean slate. For me reformatting a 40gig drive isn't necessary unless you want to. You would lose everything unless you can email it all to yourself. Pictures would be gone, documents you name it.

I'm lucky I take mine PC to work load all my stuff on the server, and then reformat my hard drive if necessary.. then put everything back when done.

You still have to reload all your software, and any other programs you have on it.

Hard drives today are designed to last a long time. The old 5gig drives weren't.

It's a personal thing, if you machine is running slow do some maintence on it, defrag...get rid of temp files etc..

GOOD LUCK..