How Many Times Did You Reformat Your Computer(s) (since the beginning)?

[Shippou]

Hello... Just thought of posting this...

I included a poll.

Of course, this is an estimate of how many times have you reformatted.

I start first.

In my estimate, I have reformatted my computer at least 15 times, since I bought it on August 2007.

So many reformats for a short span of time, no?
:lol:

EDIT: Sorry, I forgot to include a poll.. Wrong click when posting this....

[sstusick]

Countless times due to Windows screwups and dozens of times after trying dozens of Linux distros. I wouldn't be surprised if I've formatted this thing a thousand times or so. The machine is only a little over 2 years old.

PS: I don't see the poll.

[RedPandaFox]

I make sure to do a clean format of mu 2 drives at least every 6 months :) I don't store anything important so it help ,e keep everything fresh and tidy

[SunnyRabbiera]

about 50 times, 30 of them due to windows XP

[sameerds]

about 50 times, 30 of them due to windows xp

+100

[echelonIV]

For me, about 6 times within the last month. I tried out Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and Mandriva before going back to Ubuntu.

[doorknob60]

since the beginning??? hundreds for sure. I still have my Windows 95 CD code memorized by installing it so many times :O 07197-0020005-19695 And I can still type it way faster than most things, and I haven't installed it in at least three years.

[smartboyathome]

Too many times to remember, and mostly because I liked to experiment with different linux distros.

[Ub1476]

Maybe 20, from now on, only once every six month (new Ubuntu).

But when I get a laptop I might have to experience a bit. Probably use Arch because of the up to date kernel.

[nickgaydos]

I reformatted a lot to test Ubuntu flavors...now I'm sticken with Ubuntu Ultimate "Harty Hotrod" :)

[Redache]

Hundreds of times. I can't even think of a ball park figure, using computers for so long means you get used to the old reformatting screen. Especially if your cack handed like me and break things more than you make them work.

[Shippou]

Hello...

So far the greatest is 50 (whew! I thought I was the highest! Hehehe...)

I must be a pain always reformatting drives....

And also the fact that the drives themselves do not get damaged.

[Lostincyberspace]

50 is a low number for most of us. I have probably done it around 75-100 times, and thats in the last year.

[Naiki Muliaina]

Varies between hard drives, on 2 of them not because of any problems. I have 3 hard drives with the following on.

1) Main Ubuntu drive. About 6-7 times over 3 years. I take the new release of each version as an excuse for a spring clean of my drive, and make a clean install of each ubuntu release.

2) Experimental drive. More time than i can remember, its had all sorts of linux on when i first got into linux, and had a few on recently where i was learning more about linux. Maybe 100 times total.

3) Windows drive (not just 1 drive this, but counting all windows drives ive had as one). More times than i want to remember, due to faults. Not necesarily windows fault, i just seemed to have a lot of bad luck with windows. Lost count of the amount of times 95/98 needed reinstalling (damn that technician from Tempos who stole me 98 cd!). XP less times, but prolly 20+ over 5-6 years. Not bad realy, but more than it should have been. Vista, well, havent even booted up the drive ive got a fresh install on heh. Got a vista drive with last PC but my horrific memories of using it when released has deterd me from booting it up. I should sometime though, im still basing my opinion of Vista on when it was first released. Anywhos, easily 50+ times.

I guess that leaves me at about 160ish times scince windows 95 time. Dont think installing base systems was something ya did from atari 2600 through c64's and finaly amigas heh.

[aaaantoine]

Please define the scope of reformatting. I have only once reformatted the entire drive of this computer, in early November 2007, when I broke my partition table.

But I have several times resized and reformatted individual partitions.

- Sometime between January and August 2007: Converted my FAT32 partitions to NTFS partitions.
- August 2007, First foray into Ubuntu: sized down one of my Acer half-partitions to make room.
- October 2007, When Gutsy came out: sized it down some more to make more room.
- November 2007, I broke my partition table trying to make more room for Gutsy. So I took the process to its logical conclusion, installed Gutsy, and just ran Windows in a VM.
- April 2007, When Hardy came out: Reformatted the / partition as part of the "clean" install.

So that's 5 times Since January 2007, if the first one even counts. I think I also had a few incremental partition resizes in there.

[billgoldberg]

Hello... Just thought of posting this...

I included a poll.

Of course, this is an estimate of how many times have you reformatted.

I start first.

In my estimate, I have reformatted my computer at least 15 times, since I bought it on August 2007.

So many reformats for a short span of time, no?
:lol:

EDIT: Sorry, I forgot to include a poll.. Wrong click when posting this....

The pc I'm on right now?

Around 15-20 times this year.

[mthei]

The computer that I'm on now? I've had it for two years, and have done more reformats with Linux than I have ever had to do in Windows. Not because of problems (well, once), but because I was trying a lot of different distros.
Without getting too specific about what got installed when:
Once in 2006, when I first installed Ubuntu (which was my introduction to Linux-based operating systems)
9 times in 2007, trying a few others before finally switching to Fedora in December.
And 10 this year, when Ubuntu won me back with Hardy, only to go back to Fedora few times, one time when SELinux was giving me trouble at start-up.
One more time to install Debian out of boredom from distro-hopping. Hopefully, I'll be able to stick with this one.
So 21, which is a lot less than I had thought.

[Bungo Pony]

I've only had this PC for 1 1/2 years.

But I guess it depends on which partition.

If you mean the entire drive(s) then probably only twice. My Ubuntu partition has only been formatted three times: once for Feisty, once for Gutsy (then I made a /home partition) and then once for Hardy. I don't plan on doing it again until the next LTS version, or if/when I switch distros.

Windows partition? Heh. Probably around five or six times. I didn't even format that much when I was running on Win95 for 4 years - I think I did it all of twice.

BTW, I've only had this PC for 1 1/2 years.

[regomodo]

#

[markp1989]

I have quite a few hard drives,

the drive in my main computer , used to be every 3 months,when using windows, when i was distro hopping a lot must of been alot more. now at least 1 time every 6 months
data drive in my main computer, 1 time (only had it 4 months)

os drive in my server, count less times.
data drive in my server 1 time (only had it 10 days)

20gb drive that i used to test, has been formatted countless times

got a spare 160gb drive that was in my server, that has been formated about 5 times .

[fatality_uk]

Not that many. I always make sure I leave a good chuck of space to try new distros, of variants.

[Bachstelze]

I lost count ages ago :p (except for my EeePC, which I've reinstalled only once, so far).