Not a hardware question but i guess some one might help me

[knee cap]

If i formatt my hard drive which i do every few months cause of all those files u pick up and mostley useless and just slow my puter down,can i save or back up files which are more important like quake 3 patches and mp3 files from napster which are priceless from being lost in the format

[Help?]

have you got any form of back up device? just copy the file to that if you have and copy them back when done!! if not(get one they are very usfull and are getting cheaper by the minute) you can use winzip 8 across multipal disk but i wouldent recommend it as, if one floppy died then you would lose the entire zip file as far as i know. does ne1 know diff?

hope this helped

[Murchin]

U need to partition your hard drive. You cant save anything from format without specific software to retrieve it. If you partition HD then anything you want to keep you place on D:.........or whatever.

[DaiSuki]

Alternatively, just get yourself a good HD cleanup program and that'll save you the hassle of formatting every couple of months by picking out the useless files that you're not using, and getting shot of them for you.

I've used QuarterDeck CleanSweep and that's OK... I think Norton do a decent one as well.

[guyver1]

lo m8
well theres a couple of choices:
1. get yourself a cheap 1.6 - 3 gig hard drive from a computer fare of from ya local PC shop or thru the local paper.You can then put all ya patches,mp3's,documents,piccys,PORN,backup data,PORN,important stuff, <did i say PORN???? :E >
2.you can partition your hard drive into 2 drives and put ya stuff on the second partition BUT.....
if you get a nasty virus or a power surge that damages your hard drive you might loose BOTH partitions and loose all your data anyway.
3.if u have a cd writer burn all your data onto cd.
I personally use the first method and a little of the 3rd
having a seperate hard drive is the best coz if something happens to your c drive then all your stuff will still be safe on your D:\ drive .
hope this helps m8. :)

[X Cell]

Or could just not format your harddisk. Delete the Windows and Program Files folders from within dos. Then install clean from there?