Rebuild, reformat, reinstall, repair…what does it all mean?

Many folks today are hearing these 4 words and don’t really understand what they all mean. To us technicians, we know…but you don’t. It’s terms we use everyday probably so I thought you all might like a review of what they mean.

Rebuild…to physically rebuild a computers hardware

Reformat… erase all the data/programs/settings, pretty much everything. It puts the computer in an original state, just like how you got it when you brought it home from the store. Many folks have to have this done when a computer crashes very badly or if it’s very infected with a virus. You will lose all of your data/music/pictures.

TIP: even though you reformat a computers hard drive, the data is still available! Please keep this in mind when donating a computer.

If you have not backed up your data, you should because a reformat does lose everything. Call That Girl does have tools to get that data back, but it comes in a “raw” form and you lose all the names of your documents and folders.

Reinstall …the operating system, this does not reformat the drive and usually your programs are still on the computer. But your data is not.

Repair… the computer means to install the original operating system disk and fix the glitches that are causing you problems. This usually does not change your programs or data. I would always back up though prior to doing this, just in case.

That is the quick and dirty version, I  am sure there are more technical versions out there, but this is for the average reader to understand.

Call That Girl with any questions!

Tags: Computer Repair St. Paul MN, Computer support St. Paul Minnesota, Saint Paul Computer repair

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