If we format the PC frequently,does it can cause trouble in the future?

Malaysia
June 8, 2008 8:16am CST
I do heard a lot of rumors that,if we format our pc frequently it can decrease the performace of the PC. Is is ri8?
3 people like this
11 responses
• Pakistan
8 Jun 08
i dont think so because formating a drive is like refreshing the drive it create new table on hard disk.Performance depend upon the condition of ur hard Drive.
@ferdzNK (3211)
• Philippines
8 Jun 08
I think if do full format often it would be an additional strain to your hard disk. It has moving mechanical part which is subject to wear an tear. This is the reason why we have to optimize its performance to minimize such movements. As much as I can avoid it I would. It's very time consuming too if you're not using the right tools considering the sizes of hard disk these days, plus you have to reinstall all applications and restore your data.
1 person likes this
@fsound (756)
• Philippines
8 Jun 08
It's a false statement. Formatting will give your pc a clean healthy environment. yay.
1 person likes this
@sdas86 (6076)
• Malaysia
8 Jun 08
Hi, If you format your PC too often, your PC hard disk might be damaged.
1 person likes this
@sparkster (181)
16 Jun 08
Here's the real answer, that you would find enough times if you searched internet for long enough on the subject: Formatting your hard drive, as and when it needs it, is not going to do your drive any significant amount of damage. Nor will it make it any healthier. However, the more a hard drive is used (ie saved to & deleted from) and the more it is formatted, the more it will wear down over time. If you're hard drive is starting to wear down or you are concerned about damage done to it, then just put your ear next to your pc and have a listen. If it's making any kind of scraping or scratching sound then it may be starting to wear down. My son's pc is years old and the hard drive scraps real loud, if you look at his drives properties on the pc itself it shows that the capacity of the drive is only 471MB when it was originally 2GB - this is from where it has been worn down from general use.
@sircaido (162)
• Japan
8 Jun 08
I don't know what is the real answer, but base on my experience I already formatted my hardisk several times but still it works well, and just for the seek of the discussion I researched about it and I found that I is not true that it could damage the hardisk but what does matter is the sector cause bu shaking, wear and tear and the long usage of the hardisk.
1 person likes this
@santuccie (3384)
• United States
9 Jun 08
Yes, eventually. It won't happen immediately (you can format a hard drive hundreds of times, sometimes even thousands), but realize that it's only good for so many spins. And it's usually not the spindle that goes first; it's the read/write arm. Are you formatting your hard drive frequently? And if so, why? Are you constantly getting infected with viruses/spyware, or installing/uninstalling software until Windows gets unstable? There should be alternatives to whatever it is that you're doing with your computer now, so you wouldn't have to format so often. If I know what kinds of problems you're having, I might be able to help you.
@eoeoeo (125)
• United States
9 Jun 08
Yup. It is true. Doing it around 10 times is ok. But doing it 30, even 40 times is sure to damage your hardrive. Such extensive cleaning and redoing hurts and scratches the hardrive. If you look at it, the hardrive is actually a rectangular box with several disks inside. This is why when you reformat or disk defrag you hear that crazy whirling inside your computer. This continuous whirling is what damages your hardrive. Your CPU, motherboard, and RAM will not be affected however. Just the effectiveness on how you save information on your computer.
• India
10 Jun 08
I don't think it does any problem.I format my system once or twice per month and it works fine.There are all kinds of viruses that can't be removed easily so I have to format it.
• India
9 Jun 08
I dont think formating the PC would cause any harm as i format PC (only the C drive- memory files) once a month it helps the PC run quite smoothly dont format the entire PC just the C drive
@nikecold (91)
• India
16 Jun 08
Hi, It is not good for the health of HDD to format it on like weekly of monthly even quartly basis, it will make you computer runs faster at initials but as soon you will come to know that computer will run slower and you will be then more frustrated about the performance. Formatting is done only in the Case when you system will get badly effected by viruses and can't be recoverd. Bye.