Don't Reformat!

I'm Freezing!
Q:  My PC keeps freezing and nothing works. I had a technician come in and he couldn't figure it out and has suggested that I reformat my hard drive. Have any suggestions?
A: There are a number of reasons why this could be occurring. The most likely reason, sadly, is "Windows is hosed." If you are running Windows Me or a program such as GoBack Pro (from www.roxio.com), the answer is easy: just "roll back" the computer's calendar to a date when the system was working. (The forthcoming Windows XP will provide a similar feature.) If however, you do not have this capability, your options aren't very pleasant: and may require a completely clean reinstallation of Windows. This is a lot of work, but chances are excellent that the problem will go away and the computer will probably seem a lot faster, to boot.
 
I seldom recommend such a Draconian procedure as a first step, but if, as you say, it "keeps freezing and nothing works," what have you got to lose?
 
If the answer is "...MY DATA!!!" then back up everything that's important and start afresh. I generally don't reformat the drive, but you might want to.
 
You also might have a system software CD that completely restores everything to factory-fresh condition. If you do, I heartily recommend using it, again after backing up all your important documents, email addresses, etc. In this case, you may ignore all the following steps.
 
Here's how I do a "clean" installation.

• I have a floppy disk with a CD-ROM driver on it that allows me to boot from floppy and then insert a CD and run the Windows Setup program. The Windows 98 or Windows Me "Startup floppy" (but NOT the Windows 95 startup floppy!) includes the necessary CD-ROM drivers to access a CD. You can even use this floppy produced by Win98 or Windows Me to install Windows 95, if you have a friend with one of these operating systems who is kind enough to make you one of these Startup floppies for your system.
• If you cannot obtain one of these diskettes, then the easiest solution is to copy the whole Win95 directory to your hard drive BEFORE reinstalling the OS and thus losing access to your CD-ROM drive (which I'm assuming you have).
•  So, let's say you've got the floppy and a couple of hundred megabytes of free space on your hard drive. Boot to DOS and rename your "hosed" Windows directory as something else, say, C:\WINBAD

The exact command sequence to do this from the A:\ (or C:\) prompt is
 
REN  C:\WINDOWS  C:\WINBAD
(I added extra space between the words for clarity)
 
Now, you can install Windows to the usual C:\WINDOWS directory, and none of the old junk will be there. I usually keep the WINBAD directory around for a day or two, until I'm sure I'm not missing anything critical (like some weird INI file or something!) that might be lurking in one of its SYSTEM directories.

If the installation to C:\WINDOWS goes well and the system works as expected (and I'm predicting it will), you will need to reinstall ALL your applications. I suppose the ultimate solution is to entirely back up this pristine system once you've got all the apps installed, so you'll never have to go through such a hassle again.
 
If, however, you go through all these steps and the problem persists (!!!), then it is clearly not a software-related issue. You would then need to take your computer for service.
 
Alternatively, consider the "bake some cookies for a computer expert" strategy. ;-)

For Further Reading

• Aug. 16: Fixing Hardware Problems - Replacing Power Supply fans, choosing Notebooks, adding drives, extended warranties and more.
•  Apr. 20, 2001: "How To Save The Day: Maybe you don't need tech support after all. Our step-by-step guide to solving a problem yourself" ON Magazine