FDISK – short for Format Disk. Or the process you go through to completely REPAVE your Windows machine. There are a number of reasons to do this (new machine or hard-drive or maybe your old/stable hardware is doing JUST fine but Windows has bloated and slowed down to the point where you’re ready to start over).

More importantly, though, there are a million ways to hose yourself when reformatting your machine. Accordingly, what follows is my ‘ultimate’ checklist of things you’ll want to do when reformatting (or flattening) your machine.

Pre-Flattening Task #1: Deactivating Subscriptions

Once you’re sure that you’re going to repave your box, you’ll want to ‘unsubscribe’ it from every service that you possibly can – because when it comes back online it’s likely NOT going to look the same and therefore probably will count against any ‘machine limits’ you may have with music services and so on.

Things to check in this regard:

• iTunes (though I don’t think you can actually deactivate a single machine).
• Gaming Services / Subscriptions.
• Music Subscriptions.
• File Sharing / Synchronization / Backup Services.
• Anti-virus subscriptions.

Pre-Flattening Task #2: Drivers

In my experience, Windows 7 does a much better job of handling drivers than all previous versions of Windows – to the point where you can TYPICALLY get a fully functional machine up and running with a bare-bones install.

But if you want to avoid a bunch of surprises, I strongly suggest tracking down ALL of your known/working drivers BEFORE you FDISK. (I keep a copy of EVERYTHING I install in a ‘Drivers’ folder that’s stored off-box – but I still dust it off and double-check it before starting an FDISK.) And, before you get started, go check and see if there are new versions of any of your drivers – and download copies of those too (as you never know when your drivers might have been updated and you didn’t notice it or when you might just run into an issue where the older drivers working on your current box might not work once you repave).

That, and make sure you’ve got your drivers handy – as in keep them on a USB drive or something handy so that you don’t find out that you can’t access the network share where you put your NIC drivers.

Pre-Flattening Task #3: Software

Create a list (on paper or elsewhere) of all of the applications you want to install on your newly formatted machine. One very easy way to to this is to just go to Start > Programs and make a list of everything that’s installed that you still want to install on your new box. (One of the great things about an FDISK is all the software/crap you can leave behind.)

But, if you take that approach, make sure you don’t forget about the following:

• XCopy apps – or applications that aren’t installed and just run as .exe’s on your machine (like Foxit Reader).
• SysTray Apps. Check your system tray for critical utilities and other things that might not be in your Programs list but which you use regularly. (e.g., PureText and SlickRun.)
• Utilities – or the one-off applications that you may use fairly infrequently for network diagnostics, settings tweaks, downloads, whatever.
• Anti-Virus. I personally hate and never use this stuff, but I don’t recommend that to typical/average users. So, if you’ve got it (and you’d damned well better know what you’re doing if you don’t), make sure you’ve got it and all your settings/etc.

I’d also recommend that you take a tour through Control Panel > Add/Remove Apps as well – as you never know what might be listed in there that you’ll want and which might not show up elsewhere.

Then, once you’ve compiled your list, go back THROUGH and make sure you haven’t forgotten anything. Start with a mental list of all of the apps you couldn’t live without or use every day – make sure that you’ve got them all.

Pre-Flattening Task #4: Plugins/Gadgets

Now for some of the bigger and more important apps that you’ve compiled from the previous step, make sure you go through and have any plugins or add-ins for anything you really need. This might be PDF output/converters for Office, or spam filters for outlook, plugins for Visual Studio, and so on.

Filters / Templates / Etc
Likewise, if you depend heavily upon some software for day to day activities (or other things that you really care about), make sure you’ve got all of your templates, default settings, or other little ‘plugins’ and so on. (For example: filters or export options for PhotoShop or commonly-used business templates in Word or the customized C# files/templates you want Visual Studio to give you instead of what came out of the box when you add new files from template/etc.

Gadgets
Got any gadgets adorning your screen? If you want to keep them, TRY to find exact copies of their urls BEFORE you FDISK – as you’ll find they can be VERY hard to find from memory alone.

Pre-Flattening Task #5: Licenses Checks

Now go through the previous lists of programs, gadgets, plugins, and utilities that you’ve created above and make sure you’ve got LICENSES for everything needed.

If it’s been a long time since your last repave, make sure you’ve still got valid licenses for all the stuff you plan on installing. Most licenses should be perpetual, but some might not be.

More importantly, make sure you’ve got applicable license KEYS for all the software you care about. Because if you don’t, it’s MUCH better to know about this BEFORE you FDISK and lose your working versions of software.

Pre-Flattening Task #6: Settings

Software is great, but you’re probably dead in the water when it comes to settings.

Accordingly, here’s a list of things you’ll want to pay definite attention to:

• Registry Settings. Most people won’t need to worry about this one. But IF you’ve made any tweaks to your registry, you’ll want to remember what those were and script them if needed. So, for example, if you hacked the registry to stop Outlook from ‘protecting you’ against certain file-types and so on, then that’s something to look into.
• Email, WebSite, FTP, and other 'Internet' type settings. Make sure you’ve got SMTP/IMAP and/or Gmail details for all of your email accounts as needed. Same thing goes for any FTP sites you need to access, or for any sites you need to access. Hopefully you’re keeping all of your passwords in something like Password Corral, or PasswordMinder, but you can also typically export passwords from your browser and then re-import them on your newly formatted machine. Doing this will save you tons of time AFTER your repave.
• Banking. This really belongs in the previous section, but it’s important enough that it needs special attention. i.e., make sure you’ve got credentials for really important sites (like banks) and so on before you FDISK.  The same thing, of course, goes for ensuring that you’ve got all of your financial data backed up and off-box before you reformat.
• Book Marks. Hopefully you’re using something like delicious for storing your bookmarks online. But even if you are, you MIGHT still have a few bookmarks or things you’ve drug to various ‘bookmark bars’ in your browser. Make sure to back these up before you FDISK – even if you were just keeping that bookmark around ‘temporarily’.
• Application Settings (Visual Studio, SQL Server Management Studio, FTP Programs, Dreamweaver, etc… most programs let you save your preferences out as files. Find all the programs you use heavily and determine which of those will let you export your settings. Then you can just re-import after reformatting.
  For apps that DON’T support exporting your settings, you may VERY WELL want to take screenshots of settings pages or options if the application is something you use regularly. For example, i typically take a screenshot of my MOUSE settings in Windows. (My mouse itself remembers its own settings between reformats BUT those settings work ‘against’ the underlying base settings of how a mouse is configured to work in windows.)
• Office Settings.  Don't forget your rules in Outlook or elsewhere. Make sure that you export them. If you have 3rd party spam filters, make sure you grab any of those settings, including white-lists, etc. Use the Save My Settings Wizard to export all of your Office settings. Export your rules and other goodies in Outlook (Tools | Rules and Alerts - then hit the options button). You may also want to check out the following link (via Omar) which will let you save your auto-complete goodness from Office as well.
• Firewall settings/Security Settings. If you've got a firewall, or network connections etc. Make sure you can reproduce/rebuild them. Save as many settings to file as possible… otherwise document how you've got your settings currently set. VPNs? Dialups? Make sure you document them. What about your network settings? If you have a static IP, make sure you record all the info, etc.
• Wireless Settings. Make sure you know the location and access info for your router. Also make sure that if you're using WPA-PSK for any networks that you use that you know the passwords/etc. (If you're using WEP, don't bother, just download some hacking software and beat your way in - should only take a few minutes).
• Performance Settings. Made any tweaks to your system… like HD buffer sizes… TweakUI changes? Registry Hacks?
• Path. Any thing you've added to your Path? Most likely you'll be able to add them again later, but you might want to take a look and see what's in there right now and make a mental note before continuing.
• Passwords. You should be keeping all of your passwords in a strongly encrypted central location anyway (like Password Corral, or PasswordMinder, etc). Make sure you've got them ALL. Online Banking?
• Servers. Are you running IIS? SQL Server? How are the sites, and FTP, and SMTP etc set up? Make sure you can reproduce all of the settings. Document as needed. If you have VMWare or VirtualPC, make sure you have config settings for your virtualPCs. Make sure that your databases are either backed up, or that you are saving copies of the the .mdf and .ldf files (don't make the mistake of just saving the .mdf files - it can work, but burns people all the time - your best bet is to make full-backups AND save your data files if you care about your data).
• Remote Desktop/Terminal Services. If you use this make sure you've got a list of the servers you connect to with all usernames/passwords/settings etc. (you can backup your Default.rdp file).
• Remote Servers: If you connect to SQL Servers, web servers, etc… make sure you have a list of all the ones you need to connect to along with connection settings and credentials.
• Video Games. Make sure you’ve got credentials for access to online delivery services (e.g., Steam/Stardock) or to Battlenet accounts and so on. Likewise, make sure you’ve got all those all important (and totally dialed-in) settings taken care of – either by means of scripting them out, backing up necessary folders in your ‘My Documents’ folder, or by backing up your config settings for mice and other input devices.

Pre-Flattening: Data

It should go without saying that all of your data is already backed up – because you’re doing so at least nightly to an off-box location, right?

If you’re not, now is a great time to start.

That said, unless backups are regularly checked, they’re just empty electrons. So I’d NEVER trust my backups as part of an FDISK operation. Instead, I’d use them as well, a backup – meaning that I always back up ALL data I care about to a ‘temporary’ location or storage mechanism as part of my FDISK operation.

Likewise, when it comes to completely reformatting your machine, there may be some data you care about that isn’t getting regularly backed up. This typically includes settings and a host of other things.

So, in that regard, go back through the list of software you created previously. For each app is there data you care about? If so, make sure you’ve got a copy of it. This is especially true for things like financial data, documents, images, and so on.

Only you know where you keep your files… so make sure you get everything you'll need for business, hobbies, personal, finance, etc. The best way to do this is simply open up windows explorer and go through it directory by directory. (This is where being a slob is a definite disadvantage.)

Remember, once you FDISK, you’re looking at effectively never getting your data back. (Oh sure, you could send your HD off for recovery, but that’s going to take weeks and cost $5k from what I hear.) So, do yourself a favor and dutifully check all of your apps and data-stores for things you care about.

Examples of additional data stores you’ll want to consider or check:

• Outlook. Depending upon how much data you have and how much you care about it, you can just backup your .pst (LocalSettings\ApplicationData\Microsoft\Outlook\??.pst). You may want to take it a bit further and do other types of backup (to excel for example, or you CAN just go, for instance, to your contacts, hit ctrl+A and then DRAG the entire selected group of contacts into a windows folder on your desktop… this will 100% backup information (be it email, calendar items, contacts, etc) in case your .pst won't bring all of your data back to you).
• OneNote: Just use the program to create a backup to a file, or copy your notebooks out of you LocalSettings\ApplicationData\Microsoft\OneNote directory.
• Financial Software. Frequently financial programs keep their data inside of the Program Files\FinancialSoftwareApp\ directory… make sure you not only back these files up, but can get to them with any passwords/encryption/etc you need. You may also want to check the settings in these programs for anything you wouldn't want to forget (such as backup schedules/locations/etc).
• DRM. Make sure you've backed up all of your purchased movie and book rights… there are ways to backup your reader activation as well (which you'll likely want to do). For songs, you may just want to burn purchased songs to disk just to be sure. (i.e. burn them to disc such that you can rip them as standard MP3s.)
• BookMarks. Redundant from above, but if you're not already storing everything in del.icio.us, then make sure you backup your bookmarks and bookmarklets in some sort of format that will let you easily import them. (Files/plain-text are a good idea as a backup if you rely heavily upon bookmarks.)
• Desktop. I shouldn't have to mention this one... but don't forget to backup stuff on your desktop.
• Photos / Movies. Stuff from your camera / flip / phone / whatever? Just make sure you’ve got duplicate copies of this stuff before you reformat.
• Music. Somewhat redundant again but make sure that that vast horde of MP3s you’ve been carting around for years isn’t somewhere on your C:\ drive before you send it to hell.
• My Documents. Hopefully a lot of the stuff above already touches on gobs of the gunk you’ve got rolling around in here. But, make sure you go through the My Documents folder in a folder-by-folder fashion in order to ensure that you’ve got everything you could possibly care about. When in doubt? Copy it to a location and then 2 months from now when you don’t need it you can go in and nuke it.

Pre-Flattening: Identity

Your data, apps, and settings are great – but not if they’re bound to your ‘identity’ as it existed on a previous machine. To that end, here are some key things you MUST account for:

• Encrypted Folders/Files. Make sure that if you used Windows to encrypt any files on your machine (via right click > properties or via bitlocker/etc), that when you COPY these files to a backup/temporary location as part of your reformat that these files are NOT encrypted or password-protected against your SID. Because once your machine is repaved, that SID is gone for good and so are your files.
• Passwords. I’ve mentioned these already in terms of passwords for sites, ftp apps, and so on. But make sure you’ve got passwords for things like your financial software and EVERYTHING else. It’s too easy to let muscle-memory help you perform logins on local apps on your machine where the username is already ‘remembered’ – to the point where you COULD actually lose access to something when you get to a ‘new’ machine and that familiar crutch is no longer around. Don’t take any changes and put all of your passwords into safe/secure locations AND MAKE SURE you can EASILY export and then IMPORT that sensitive data BEFORE you proceed.
• Services. Hopefully plenty of the things mentioned above are ‘covered’ because they’re up in the cloud or online as services that you use. But if that’s the case, make sure you’ve addressed issues such as activation/deactivation of your machine before reformatting it and that you’ve got the necessary passwords, license keys, API keys, or whatever that are needed to give you access to all of these services once you’re back up and running.

Pre-Flattening: More Identity / Lose Ends

Another thing you’ll likely want to take along with you when you reformat would be aspects of Windows that you’ve customized such as:

• Backgrounds. All those images of cats and n’Sync that you’ve been using for your desktop background? Now’s a good time to make sure they’re backed up and portable if you want them on the ‘other side’.
• Screen Savers. That killer ‘Matrix’ screensaver you picked up a few years ago? Yeah, you’ll want to find the executable and license for that if you haven’t done so already.
• Fonts. I hate custom fonts like there’s no tomorrow. So it comes without saying that my marriage was on the rocks for a while when I reformatted my wife’s machine WITHOUT backing up her fonts first. If you have custom fonts you can back them up SUPER EASILY. Just go to C:\Windows\Fonts and then copy/paste any fonts into a folder that you can move off-box and on to your new box once you’re back up and running.
• Sound Files. If you’ve enjoyed making everyone in the office hate the sound your machine plays when you get new email, now’s the time to copy those files off-box (or, maybe now’s the time to grow up?)
• Scheduled Tasks. If you’ve got scheduled tasks in Windows (or via other apps such as SyncBack), make sure to copy them off box and include some notes on the times they were running just in case you have to rebuild their schedules from scratch.

Conclusion

Good luck with your repaving efforts. Drop me a line if you can think of anything I’ve missed – as this list is sadly a work in progress (written in blood).