It has been quite a long time since my last format. I will be changing out some of the hardware in my main PC soon and have decided to go ahead and use it as an excuse to format my computer. The real key to a successful format is to backup all of your important data. This begs to question: What should I back up? My first question though: What OS do I want to run?

The first step is to figure out what Operating System you are going to use. Most will choose Windows and this guide will be primarily focused on that. As far as Linux goes, while I prefer CentOS for hosting, Gentoo and OpenSuSE are my favorites for a Desktop environment. I’ve been meaning to try Linspire to see how it ranks for ease of use (so I can recommend it to friends just switching to Linux), but I think I’ll throw that on a test box rather than risking my main machine with it.

When backing up one’s data, many people tend to forget about one or two things. Hopefully I can help to prevent that. Here is a checklist of important items:

• Clean up your Desktop. Figure out what items on your Desktop you need to keep and back them up.
• Check your “My Documents” folder and subfolders. Figure out which items to back up, or just back up the whole thing.
• Back up your Favorites/Bookmarks. This is an OFTEN overlooked item that many tend to forget to back up.
• Back up your E-mail. I may post some guides for doing this in various e-mail programs sometime in the near future.
• Back up your E-mail Software Settings. I may post some guides for doing this in various e-mail programs sometime in the near future.
• Back up your E-mail Address Book. I may post some guides for doing this in various e-mail programs sometime in the near future.
• Back up your E-mail Filtering Rules. I may post some guides for doing this in various e-mail programs sometime in the near future.
• Back up and/or download your E-mail Software Plugins and Browser Software Plugins.
• Back up your Documents that may not be located in your “My Documents” folder. It wouldn’t hurt to do a search of your whole computer for XLS, DOC, PDF, ODS, and other files of that type.
• Backup your Pictures and Photos. Make sure to check the folders of any photo software you might be using.
• Backup your Music and Movies! If you use iTunes or similar software to download music and/or movies, make sure to back them all up!
• Backup your Chat Conversations. If you save your chat history then make sure to back it up!
• Backup your Fonts! This is an often overlooked item to backup, but important all the same. If you have downloaded fonts in the past, make sure to back up your fonts so that you don’t have to spend a ton of time searching them out later on down the road.
• Backup and make sure that you have all of your Product Keys and any Software Receipts. It would be very unfortunate to format and then find that you don’t have the key to activate a piece of software you rely on.
• Backup your Save Files and Personalized Settings. If you are running software that allows you to “save games” or have special configurations that you like, make sure to back up the configuration and save files so that you don’t have to spend much time configuring the software when you get it back up and running.
• Backup and/or download your Hardware Drivers and Patches. It will be helpful if you have all the drivers that you need for your PC ready to go BEFORE you format, rather than hunting for them after you format when you REALLY need them. Most important are NIC and Modem drivers. Without these you may have trouble getting online to grab drivers you may have missed.
• Download Software Installers and then back them up! You’ll thank me for this if you have the space to do so. Download installers such as Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, Flash, Acrobat Reader, WinSCP, Instant Messengers, and other such installers so that you don’t have to worry about much of this after the format. Another important one to grab would be your Windows Service Packs so that you can have it ready to go and not spend hours updating Windows.
• Write down your Network Settings or ISP Connection Settings. After all, you’ll need this to get back online and get anything you missed.
• Finally, check every nook and cranny of your hard drive for anything else you may have missed and back it up! If you have two drives that are similar in speed/space or have a better drive, it could behoove you to not delete the data off of your current main drive, and to use your other drive as your new main drive.

Here’s a PDF of the above list that you may find helpful:
The Webmaster’s Edge Pre-Format File Backup List
This way you can print out the list for easy reference while backing things up!

I hope you found this helpful! If you have any suggestions to add to this list, please let me know. Happy formatting!

UPDATE: Added PDF file for an easily printed list of items to back up.
UPDATE #2: Added Fonts to the list.

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