fix windows: format your hard drive 31 of october 1999 by johnmichael patrick monty monteith

On a lovely Sunday morning I was sitting around looking at the falling red leaves, listening to the birds chirping in their preparation to fly south, and I thought, "what a perfect day to install a Microsoft product". A Microsoft buddy picked up a copy of Windows 98 Release Two for me from the company store, and I could think of no better way to ruin a lovely day than to install it. So that is exactly what I did.

If you are unfamiliar, Microsoft, in all of their marketing wisdom, has actually released a second version of Windows 98 that includes a few new networking goodies and mainly a bunch of bug fixes. The marketing dweebs, er, I mean geniuses at Microsoft have downplayed this update, and only those that follow the industry know that if you want the latest OS bug fixes, you need to pop down another hundred bucks at your favorite local silicon hangout, or about twenty bucks for the patch version ordered directly from Redmond.

This technique of hiding second releases started due to the nasty public relations nightmare that happened when a year or so after the release of Windows 3.0 there was a bug fix release called Windows 3.1. Microsoft made the original mistake of releasing Windows 3.0 before they should have, but compounded the problem by within a short time period releasing a new version and charging money for it. Not surprisingly, people were generally miffed that they had to spend big bucks to fix what essentially amounted to Microsoft's programming errors. So when Windows 95 bug fix (release two) was launched, they tried the subtle approach of putting it out on the market without advertisement. Of course, if you want to decrease the number of programming errors in Windows 95 from five billion to two billion, you will still need to fork out the cash for the upgrade. But, hey, at least you did not need to be reminded of Microsoft's terrible programming with advertisements of "NEW RELEASE TWO!"

My opinion is that Microsoft should just bare the bad P.R. and release upgrades as they need to, and let people know about them. How many Windows 98 users are out there at this very moment enduring countless problems that could be fixed with an upgrade, and are unaware the option is out there. Of course, giving these intermediate upgrades away at cost might be a good way to make some friends (or at least keep from making new enemies).

That being said, before they start advertising their bug fix upgrades, they might want to fix some of the bugs in the bug fix.

The install of release two was going just lovely until the system re-booted to start the process of configuring drivers and such. On the re-boot it came up with the ever-loved 'VxD' errors, and could never recover. I spent the next couple hours trying numerous work-arounds, including an attempted restore of Windows 98 release one, attempting to install release two from DOS, going through and searching down the root of the VxD error, and so on. Eventually I realized that this might be a good time to format the hard drive and start over.

I formatted drive C, and installed Windows 98 Release Two from a blank drive. That went wonderful, so then I re-installed all of my software and drivers. This process took most of my lovely Sunday, by the way. But, the result was wonderful. I forgot how fast and nice my old Pentium 200MHz used to run. In fact, it is now running faster than my PIII 450 at work. (I can hear the Intel employees keyboards clicking nasty emails to me this very moment.)

It is a well-known fact that Windows 95 / 98 deteriorates over time, but it does so slowly, so you never really realize just how different your computer runs now. This deterioration is amplified considerably if you install many different programs and fonts, because even if you uninstall them, often they leave things cluttering up your system.

I have wondered if maybe this was some 'feature' that Intel pays Microsoft to include in their operating systems. For example, before I formatted my drive on Sunday I was prepared to buy a new computer within the next couple of months because I was under the impression that my computer was just too slow these days. In fact, I had just forgotten how fast it really is. Regardless of whether Microsoft put this feature in on purpose, it is perhaps the single worst thing about all Windows products. However, do not bother hold your breath for a future Windows release to correct this issue.

Chances are if you use your Windows system a lot, have installed quite a few programs on it (even if they have been removed), and you have owned it for more than a year, your hard drive could use formatting. By doing so you could notice considerable performance increases, making the need for purchasing a new computer unnecessary. However, before you see "C:\>FORMAT C: /S" on your monitor, you need to be very careful. As you can well expect, this is not a process for those that get frustrated easily. Still, if you are considering spending another few thousand bucks on a computer, I highly recommend thinking about this first. Here are a few pointers, and as others email me with their pointers I will include them as well:

Do you have a partitioned hard drive? In other words, you have both a C drive and a hard drive assigned with D and maybe others as well - not to be confused with a CDROM drive labeled D. Of course, if this has confused you at all, you should not be considering this process anyway, and should either find a friend to help do this or just buy a new computer. If you do have a partitioned drive, back up all of your documents (probably in 'My Documents') on to the non Windows (non-'C') partition. In addition, backup all other important information to the partition. This might include your email from Outlook, Eudora or either email programs (within the program itself they can tell you where the file is being stored, and you can back it up).

Also, if you feel like avoiding the mistake I made, you might want to backup your C:\Windows\Favorites directory or risk losing all of your Internet Explorer favorites. If you are running Navigator, you will want to backup your Bookmarks. There is nothing more annoying than thinking "gee, I backed up everything perfectly" and then finding out that you lost all of your bookmarks. Very upsetting.

In addition, any application data you have will need to be backed up as well, from Quicken, Money, or any database programs or anything else. Anyway, you know what programs are important to you, and if you were considering buying a new computer, you should have been thinking of this process anyway.

After you have backed everything up, make a backup of your backup. Either burn it on to a CDROM, or tape, ZIP disk, or floppies if you have to. If something goes wrong, you will be happy you did. If you do not have a partition as a second backup, you should find a way of making certain that you have two backup copies of everything important.

From there, it is just a matter of putting in a DOS boot floppy that has CDROM support, and typing FORMAT C: /S from the DOS prompt. Then insert your Windows 98 Release Two CDROM, switch to the CDROM drive, type 'setup' and off you go. Oh, well, then you have to re-install all your software, drivers, and backed up stuff. But, hey, that should not take you more than a couple of days.

In the end, you will have learned just how complicated it is to setup a brand new computer, as well as having a system that runs as fast or maybe faster than the day you bought it.

Recently at my place of employment we made the discovery that the brand spanking new Compaq computers we have been purchasing actually run much faster if we format the hard drive and re-install Windows and other applications from scratch. Then we take the re-formatted hard drive and copy it to the other new systems with DiskCopy, and in the end we have much faster computers than what was shipped. Computer manufacturers have gotten into the nasty habit of shipping computers with just about everything under the sun installed on the hard drive, and the result is a computer that runs too slow from the day it is purchased. If you require performance, even on a brand new system, you might consider giving this option a shot.

At the end of this long learning process I ended up with a computer running faster than it probably has ever run before. I can now probably delay purchasing a new computer for at least another six months. And, I got to spend a lovely autumn day in front of my computer shouting obscenities at Microsoft. Just another typical Sunday, I'm afraid.