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Microsoft Reformat Hard Drive

Tips for E-Mail Backup Before Reformatting the System

You tend to think of reformatting the system if you find

• the computer very slow in processing information,
• the system infected with virus,
• software malfunction,
• or if you want to upgrade the operating system

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Reformatting the system will enable you to reset it to factory settings and will make your system as good as new. However, the process can be disastrous if you do not backup your data, since reformatting the system will lead to loss of old data stored in the hard drive. If you are planning to reformat the system you should ensure that you make a backup of the necessary data. Making a backup helps secure your data against data loss to a large extent. Though, it helps you to copy your data to another drive, removable storage device or to service providers it is not a fool proof solution against data loss. Some of the reasons that make your backup ineffective are

• Missing out data- when you make a backup you need to select the data that need to be copied. Most of the times, you tend to omit critical data such as Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express. This means that your e-mails, address book, notes, messages, appointments and journal entries will not be accessible after you reformat the system.
• Backup methods- Back up methods are time consuming and if you use faulty methods (such as selecting data randomly, selecting programs that are modified recently) the backup will not give the desired results.
• Dysfunctional backup- Even though you have used correct backup practices your backup could become dysfunctional if the data gets corrupted or if the storage device used for copying data is damaged.

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You can minimize the threat of data loss from backup by opting for utilities that help you to make a backup efficiently. This is very useful for making backups of Outlook that you tend to miss out very often. Products like Smart E-mail backup will help you to

• Copy all data from Outlook such as e-mails, folders, contacts, calendars, journal entries, RSS feeds, mail groups, inbox rules, signatures and even junk folders.
• Make periodic backup on a daily, weekly or monthly basis
• Backup even password protected files
• Make a backup with ease that can be used whenever you need it- after reformatting, to migrate to another version of operating system or Outlook,
• Create partition restore points to recover data in case of a data loss situation
• Even to restore your Outlook.

About the Author

Restore after formatting your hard drive?

I have some problems with my hard drive (c: drive) and I am seriously thinking about reformatting the hard drive and do a fresh reinstall. I was wondering, after reformatting and reinstalling Windows XP, can I use a old backup file to recover most of what I lost? (I created a backup about 2 months ago using Microsoft Backup Utilities on the external hard drive, or d: drive)
Just to add, my backup file is located on the EXTERNAL drive (so it will not be formatted). I used the option "everything on my computer" when I chose to backup - I don't know if this constitutes mirror image backup or not.

It would be great if you can provide a little more about that backup file done using MS Backup Utilities. Was it strictly a data backup? Or was it a Drive Image backup?

HUGE DIFFERENCE!

A data backup is simply that... it just backs up your data such as excel files, personal files, music files, and whatever you specified to backup. However, your applications that were installed at that point in time will not work as they are just stored as data and not as an image (described below).

An Image backup is a bit-by-bit copy of your Hard Drive into a file on another drive so that if you main system HD goes bad or need to re-install due to some corruption, you can restore that image back onto that reformatted hard drive and all your applications and data installed and stored at that moment in time will be restored and fully usable. This is a very delicate process and if you had hardware changes the image may not work perfectly.

Then most likely it is not an image of your drive which means, you will have to re-install all your applications. Your personal files though should be intact so you can recover those. I think that's the biggest misconception with all these 'one touch backup' and software backups is that it does not explain to the user that even though it says backup everything, it does not mean that if your computer crashes, you can use that backup to restore everything.

Microsoft Reformat Hard Drive
How to format a hard drive for Mac OS X

'Setup was unable to verify drive' Error Installing Windows XP

You might encounter different errors while trying to install or upgrade to Windows XP. These errors might occur due to logical or physical errors in hard disk, which cause data loss. Thus, to recover from such problems, you need to use your current backup or hard drive recovery that could recover the data.

To illustrate the same, consider that you try to install Windows XP on your computer, but fail in your attempts as Setup gives the following error message:

“Setup was unable to verify drive C:.
Your computer may not have enough memory to examine the drive, or your Windows XP CD may contain some corrupted files.
To continue, press Enter.”

As suggested, when you click Enter to this error message, you might come across another error message:

“Setup cannot access the CD containing the Windows XP installation files.”

Reinserting the disk and starting the Setup again gives the same errors, as above.

Cause

The above issue might root from any of the following possible reasons:

• Windows XP is incompatible with your computer motherboard or BIOS. To determine if this is the cause, you can use Microsoft Windows Upgrade advisor located on Windows XP Setup disk that checks current hardware and software compatibility with Windows XP.

• You are trying to install from a damaged Windows XP Setup CD

• You are trying to install on a physically or logically crashed hard disk. To know the exact problem, use Windows XP Recovery Console to run chkdsk command-line tool. If this could detect and access your hard disk, the issue is file system corruption or MBR damage. However, if this could not, your hard disk is physically faulty.

Solution

Following solutions can help you recovering from such problems:

• If Microsoft Windows Upgrade advisor reports that your motherboard or BIOS is incompatible with Windows XP, try replacing the problematic hardware or software

• Try using a different Windows XP installation CD

• Run chkdsk. If hard disk is not accessible, replace it and contact Data Recovery experts to recover data. However, if running chkdsk doesn't fix existing hard disk issues, try using fixmbr and fixboot commands or reformat the hard disk. For recovering data thus lost, use your backup or a suitable Partition Recovery product to recover it. These are powerful Data Recovery Tools designed specifically to scan a logically crashed disk and locate the missing data.

Stellar Information Systems Limited is one of the leading Data Recovery company providing industry's best disk recovery software and services. Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery is a safe and user-friendly recovery tool for Windows 7 RC1, Vista, XP, 2003 and 2000 systems. Stellar is also known for comprehensive and advanced recovery service for all types of hard drives through Class 100 Clean Rooms.

About the Author

K madhav is a data recovery expert and doing research on data recovery software and data recovery software

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Microsoft Reformat Hard Drive