Am backing up the laptop. Never formatted the DELL Inspiron since I got it, almost 3 years…that’s how long I’ve been with this company too.

Next will be the command c:/> format

Like any housekeeping chore, the trick is to be “determined” and “merciless”. My rule of thumb when it comes to deleting files is that if I don’t remember opening the folder for the past few months, then it’s got to be something insignificant- “Shift+Delete”. Backing up e-mails is another P.I.T.A. (pain-in-the-ass) job. There’s a procedure I set up for it:-

1) Create a New Inbox and name it “Backup”

2) Throw all the emails that I will backup and NOT RESTORE it later in my new installation later.

E.g. Mails that are 2 years old should have no place in my upcoming email archives. These emails will be labelled with their respective folder name, only I will add an extra “BAK_folder_name” just to make it easier to identify the backed-up folder (*.dbx files in the Outlook Express directory).

3) Leave the emails that needs to be restored in their exsiting folder.

As with any formating experience, I am bound to leave something important out. Checklists are only as good as the author who wrote the checklist.

So, let’s just hope that everything is in good order. And yeah…Microsoft Customer Service number…Firefox bookmarks…Yahoo! Conversations Archives…bla…bla…

If you don’t see me posting in the next 48-hours, something must have gone VERY wrong!

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