... reformat time.

RPGC Assistance Forums Technical Support Forum
#1

The comp has now, twice, failed to start up in less than three days. Both times it has worked fine in the morning, but blue-sceen-of-deathed (so briefly I don’t have time to see what it says) and then run a reset to an earlier, working date on starting. Both times I’ve also gotten a message that the anti-virus isn’t up to date (Microsoft Security Essentials) but I think that is because it resets to an earlier time.

Anyway. I was looking for instructions on how to reformat Windows 7 on Microsoft’s site and I THINK this is it; “Reinstalling Windows 7” (reading from the Swedish version). It sounds about right in the instructions. Since I’m a bitt winded up about the whole thing I’m not going to do something before I know this is it, so I’ll just ask to be on the safe side: Will this accomplish the same as a reformat?

I’ve been running both Spybot and the anti-virus, and neither of them find anything.

I really, REALLY hope this will end these goddamn problems.

#2

A reinstall will not accomplish the same as a reformat. You’ll want to follow the Using the Custom installation option and formatting the hard disk instructions. Do make sure you backup everything of personal importance - documents, pictures, favourites, save games, e-mails, etc.

#3

Ah. Thanks, Nul :slight_smile:

#4

And done. I hope things will work as they should, now. My friend is badgering me to get Rift… >_>

#5

Have you checked if it’s a ram problem? I had a similar problem when I built my computer and played Starcraft 2 on it. I didn’t know at the time that there was a bug in the game that could potentially fry the ram. One of my modules was broken and whenever I started up with two sticks it would bsod on startup. Sometimes it would boot fine but when I ran a program it would crash and restart. Safe mode sometimes worked. Whenever I could get an error report it would say some kind of system file was corrupted and in turn corrupted krnl.exe or something like that. I RMA’d the ram and that did the trick.

#6

Hm, dunno. The only game I had on the computer before was Civilization 5, and I haven’t reinstalled that. I had that for months before the problems started and hadn’t played it in a while, though. I’m going to get Rift this or next week, probably, we’ll see how that works out.

#7

When reinstalling an OS doesn’t it ask if you would like to delete/replace existing partitions? and by doing so… isn’t that kind of the same as reformatting?

Perhaps this is just with windows XP… however I’m curious! Nice question btw Weiila.

#8

If you tell it to delete and replace existing partitions, it’s a format and not a reinstall. It would be semantics if a reinstall didn’t entail merely overwriting the system files with the original install system files. It’d leave all your personal data intact ( as well as any viruses not amongst the overwritten system files. )