Backing Up Options for Reformatting

[vandal31593]

Well it's that time of year again. I have to Reformat my PC (thank god it's not my mac). IT'S RUNNING SO SLOW. It's crashing all the time. And it's overheating and shutting down so maybe Reformatting will clean it out a little. But I have no money for a external HDD, don't have enough patience for making 893742983479 CD's, and it's not gonna work uploading it to a web server.

So any suggestions? I was thinking of one way though...compress my documents into an ISO. I have no idea if it will work.

But the most important question is, is there ANY way of backing up your programs? Because I don't wanna download and install every single program again. OH and what about making another partition on my HDD and installing a fresh copy of windows onto there and just drag and drop? I have no idea whatsoever if this is going to work. So I ask the people I trust the most, Mac-Forums, to help me come up with an idea!

Thanks!

 

[NanoBite]

FYI anyone viewing this thread, that sign displaying your personal info is only viewable by you and no-one else. It only shows the current viewers IP/ISP/Platform & Browser info. Still gives me the creeps, though.

 

[RTP]

Within Windows, most programs need to be installed (as opposed to merely copying them to the Applications folder etc.). During the installation, files are copied to various locations within the System folder etc., and changes will be made to the registry. Hence, it's not really possible to backup your programs in the way that you would want to.

As far as I understand, the only way it would be possible is if you cloned your entire hard drive, then copied everything back. But of course that would defeat the point of reformatting and reinstalling Windows.

It might be a blessing in disguise though. If you have to re-download all of the programs you're probably only likely to download the programs you really want - thereby keeping your newly-re-installed system cleaner

For your personal files, is it possible to back them up to your Mac? I.e., network it with your PC and move the files across, or via target disk mode? Otherwise I guess you could just try and borrow a friend's external drive or a thumb drive or two

 

[iBeldar]

I would rather download and install everything than to back up all of the folders. There may be infected files in there and dragging them to the new partition will only bring them there and make that partition run slow.

 

[vandal31593]

Ok, thanks for your replies. I guess I'll just copy my documents folder onto my Mac or onto like a DVD/RW. As for the programs, I will probably just make a print screen of all the programs in Add/Remove Programs. I am building my own gaming computer this summer so I'll jusst reformat this computer and when I get my new computer I'll just add this computers hard drive into my new one. My computer now is OLD and SLOW. My new one is gonna have Core 2 Duo, 320GB HDD, Asus MB...It's gonna be good!

Thanks a lot to everyone who replied.