There’s a couple things you should do before reformatting.
This first is to get Belarc Advisor. It’s a free program that lists all of your drivers and software programs along with many of the important serial codes you might have misplaced. This is helpful, and will aid you in finding the right drivers. Keep in mind, some of the program you may not be putting back on your computer, but it helps to have this printed out as a reference.
The next thing is to download your drivers. Now you may have this on a CD you got when you bought your computer, or if you bought your computer from Dell, you can enter your service tag and it’ll give you a complete list of the recommended, optional and urgent drivers for your specific machine.
My mistake was not doing this before reformatting.
Whoops.
The final thing is to get a good backup.
Now you don;’t need to backup the entire C: drive. Usually you can get away with just the user profiles you use. And you may or may not want to backup all your MP3s and multimedia. When organizing my computer, I keep these large multimedia files in a seperate directory, so I can easily choose to backup or not back these up.
Now speaking of backups, you should have an on-site backup in the form of a large external HD attached via a USB port. They are easy to use and mostly plug-n-play.
You should also have an off-site backup, because if you don’t, you’re really not backed up in case of a fire or theft. I thought at one point I had lost all my digital pic from Paris, and I was really depressed until I found them.
Now I keep all of my pics backed-up remotely also using Mozy.
Mozy has a free 2GB account, but if you use it for digital pictures, that may fill up fast. The monthly fee is a reasonable $4.95 per month, but worth it for the peace of mind, in my opinion.
That’s an affiliate link, by the way.
Next we’ll talk about the 1st programs I installed.
If you missed the first part of this series, you can catch it here.
Now this took some time!
