What do you need to backup before formatting your hard drive?

When a computer is running slow, many people think that the solution is always to formatting the hard disk. Although formatting is not always the most appropriate thing to do and doing it too often can take its toll, sometimes it may be appropriate to do so.

In any of the cases, we have to take some precautions so that if we format the disk or partition later it does not turn out that. we are missing files or drivers and we spend a lot of time reinstalling everything. In this article we tell you what things you should save before carrying out this process.

What files to save before formatting

Formatting your computer will leave your PC pretty much as it came into the world. You will have to reinstall Windows or the operating system you want to use as if it came from the factory. If you do this, it may not be possible to recover deleted or damaged files with any recovery program.

You need a external hard drive or a cloud server where you can make an online backup. Here is a system that will allow you to save everything. What you will have to keep an eye on is:

• Save all your documents: I mean images, video, Word files, Excel files and all kinds of content that you have created or saved. Even if you don’t know if they will work for you, you will check it later.
• Save the drivers: some computers will come with a driver disk for the hardware, but others may not. In that case you will need to save them. They are in the Windows folder on your hard drive.
• Save the downloaded programs: all the free software that you have downloaded from the Internet is usually convenient to have it saved so that you do not have to download it again.
• Make the recovery disk: you need the Windows disk so that you can then reinstall it. If you are going to use another operating system, such as Ubuntu, you will need to download the ISO file and save it on a CD.
• Copy your browser information: sometimes we forget to save important information such as the “favorites” of our browser, because we will not see them again and we might have important pages.

Make sure that if you have the Windows installation disk you also have a serial number. Once you have saved everything, then you can start the process of formatting the hard disk. For this we will have to insert the Windows installation disk and follow the instructions.

I insist that it is very important that you make a backup of all your files and programs. before formatting, otherwise you will lose those files.

Are you thinking about formatting your computer? Do you have doubts? If you found this article useful, share it with your friends on Facebook and Twitter.