How often do you reformat/reinstall O.S.?

[dueda]

Some people found my "computing higiene" habits intriguing, and a hint from the forum mod led me to post this.

I partition, format and clean install my PC regularly, say, 2 times a year!  Been doing it all my life and guess I may die while doing it as well... Here's why:

Not to brag, but I used to buy a new PC every year and liked to fresh-install each one; it was a way to test and have fun.
One would be surprised... once I found out my PC was sold with an O.S. hack to pose as hardware it actually wasn't; another time I got a O.S. Pre-release Windows (beta) version with an activation hack. Just the fool mixed different system languages and Windows Update got crazy. So I believe it is a good thing to format every new PC, just in case, specially if you live South.

I like testing averything I lay hands on: Windows, Android, MacOS, Linux, BeOS, OS/2 (I bought this one!), and some modified hacks: Tiny7, XP/BE...
And I got lotta malware, damaged system files and registry. Not the soundest choices but I'm a download junkie.

Last, no anti-malware works 100%; some tricks just get away with it. So when my PC becomes slow or "weird", then format and reinstall becomes a good option.

So, why do you guys reformat / reinstall and how often?

[contrail]

I do it once a year, to clean p under the hood stuff that lingers around.

[RobertX]

I do it more than twice a year, as much as I need.

[Mr.Masami]

It may be a good thing for people who are not too "savy" with computers to reformat from time to time.
But I think better solution for people who choose this path is to do backup of whole disk right after installing all the drivers, so next time you just run backup util, one click and you're good as new.

As for me, once I install the system it's there until I decide I want other system / newer.

...One would be surprised... once I found out my PC was sold with an O.S. hack to pose as hardware it actually wasn't...

LOL, I was joking like ten years ago with my friend that it would be cool to modify BIOS firmware to display fake data and sell the hardware for better price.
But we stopped at joking.

[Kingfish]

My PC came with Vista then it continually upgraded to Win 10 without any format.

[AncientRome]

I reformat every 6 months.
It might be a placebo effect, but it's something I've been doing a long time.

You can create disk images to speed up the process, and certain sites like Ninite have lots of popular programs that are easy to install.

[dueda]

Mr.MasamiIt may be a good thing for people who are not too "savy" with computers to reformat from time to time.
But I think better solution for people who choose this path is to do backup of whole disk right after installing all the drivers, so next time you just run backup util, one click and you're good as new.

I reformat every 6 months.
It might be a placebo effect, but it's something I've been doing a long time.

You can create disk images to speed up the process, and certain sites like Ninite have lots of popular programs that are easy to install.

Thanks for the ideas, I've tried with little success.
A DVD image will be slow, even if less than half the time of a standard system/drivers/basic apps install.
A USB flash drive just won't work with my "funny" rig and my "unfunny" skills.

Once I found a generic low capacity flash drive wich did it, but a friend formatted it; killed four flash's already but never managed to do it right again.
Will try again as soon I find courage to buy more USB sticks.

[Mr.Masami]

The way I do it:

I have two disks of the same size, one is disabled in BIOS and only activated when backing up.
So viruses don't have access to my backup disk.

Once couple months I do 1:1 backup by running any linux distro from USB stick that I made using Rufus (best tool).

I run this command when in linux terminal:

sudo dd if=/dev/sda bs=1M | pv --size 750g | sudo dd of=/dev/sdb bs=1M iflag=fullblock

you can run it without pv:

sudo dd if=/dev/sda bs=1M | sudo dd of=/dev/sdb bs=1M iflag=fullblock

It's only there to display some progress bar.

It's ancient method and not the fastest but it will make 1:1 copy (even "deleted" data will be copied)

Both disks must be unmounted before executing this command, I always mount for a moment one of the disk to check which is the source by looking at the files.

So if anything goes very wrong, I can resume my work without hassle by just booting again from USB and executing same command with swapped disk (from sdb to sda).

Important data I keep on separate USB stick as every disk will some day die.

[spikemite]

I drive it till i dies.

I back up the registry regularly, and core system once in a great while.

I turn off 'updates' and do ALOT of tweaking to make sure crap doesnt get on to the system, and cant live long if it gets there. Catch a nasty about once a year, and kill it manually in about a half hour.

By always monitoring system activity and getting a feel for what is normal, alot of grief can be avoided. Proces Hacker and Hijackthis are indespensible....

[AncientRome]

A USB flash drive just won't work with my "funny" rig and my "unfunny" skills.

I have been using a high speed USB 3.0 flash drive with Acronis True Image to lower install time.
A normal Windows 10 installer on a high speed flash drive takes about 5 minutes.

In less than 30 minutes I'm back to business as usual.