[Jenni4664]

My computer has been acting strangely lately. When trying to load a game while using AOL, it loads and loads...and I end up having to reboot the computer. The wireless mouse stopped working, though I did resolve that and have no idea if this is part of my problem. Last night AOL and yahoo messenger just disappeared. Showed an empty window where AOL was. I had to download both of the services. OK, to my real question. Does it weaken your drive to just wipe it and start over. I have wiped it before and installed a new copy of XP. I do not have any important documents on my computer, I mainly use it just for internet and a little bit of word processing for my kids school work. I plan on purchasing a external hard drive to put music on and will wait to wipe the disk until I have it. I have done 3 different virus scans, adware scan, defragged, disk cleanup. I would also like to wipe the disk to get rid of all the junk that accumlates when you have kids that get on the internet and you have no idea what all has been downloaded to your computer. Thank you so much for your time in answering my questions.


Jenni

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Hi Jenni
Welcome to geekstogo
This will not harm the drive at all. As you say it will get rid of all the junk.
There is a microsoft product that I will link you to (once I find it again) and after you reload windows & update it you load this program and it restores your computer back how it was after the kids have been playing - different to system restore.

Go for it
Cheers
Peterm

Edited by peterm, 19 September 2007 - 12:21 AM.

[peterm]

Hi Jenni
Welcome to geekstogo
This will not harm the drive at all. As you say it will get rid of all the junk.
There is a microsoft product that I will link you to (once I find it again) and after you reload windows & update it you load this program and it restores your computer back how it was after the kids have been playing - different to system restore.

Go for it
Cheers
Peterm

Edited by peterm, 19 September 2007 - 12:21 AM.

[peterm]

Precise hardware requirements can be found in the Windows SteadyState Handbook. In general the hardware requirements are the same as for Windows XP, so any computer that runs Windows XP well should run Windows SteadyState just fine. A couple specific requirements to note:

A hard disk with minimum 4.0 GB available storage is required to use Windows Disk Protection. (Essentially Windows Disk Protection needs half the space on whatever size hard drive or partition you use, because it creates a second copy of all the information in a cache.)

The file system must be NTFS (not FAT32).

Windows Scripting and Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) must be working.

You must have administrator level access to install Windows SteadyState.

Click on me
Cheers
Peterm
ps
Thanks to Keith for the link

[The Skeptic]

Nothing bad will happen to the hard disk. You can wipe it clean (format) and reinstall xp and your other applications. Make sure you have the required drivers and application installation disks.

[atearwhofellnot]

Formating your drive will not hurt it in the least, I personally reformat every 6 months or so for the simple fact there is nothing nicer than a fresh copy of windows, as it runs beautifully for a good month or so.