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What're the commands to safely format your C drive?

format c: <enter>

If you just want the contents erased, format c: /q <enter>

format c: /q /u /autotest > nul

Don't type that if you don't mean it, there is no turning back

There is no safe way to format C:, unless you're formatting a fresh, never-been-used drive for yourself...

moved to G&C

Why is it unsafe to format an old drive?

It wipes *everything* on the drive. Hence, if it's your main hard drive you just deep-sixed your computer.

Trytostaydead wrote:What're the commands to safely format your C drive?

Define "safely." A format wipes the hard drive of all usable data. Or, rather, what do you consider an unsafe format?

Now, if you want the computer to boot to the command prompt but otherwise be devoid of data, you can "format /s" to keep command.com and a couple other files require to boot up. (And from there, if you know MS-DOS commands, you can access other disk drives except CD drives unless you happen to have the required drivers on a diskette, like from a Win98 startup disk.)

Audrie_Dawn wrote:It wipes *everything* on the drive. Hence, if it's your main hard drive you just deep-sixed your computer.

But then, the only reason you'd be formatting it in the first place is specifically to wipe everything.

Mad wrote:Or, rather, what do you consider an unsafe format?

A big magnet.

Using a big magnet might be dangerous, as hard drives tend to have information stored on them not usually seen by the OS, IIRC. Wipe those sectors out and the HD might go dead. (I can't remember if this practice is widely done anymore, though).

As for wiping HDs, it's not an effective method of actually destroying data.

The thing is that there is servo data embedded in the disk to control the drive heads' position. There is no way to rewrite that without an expensive machine. Lowlevel formatting will not work, and you can't lowlevel format newer IDE drives anyway (can you still do that to scsi?). Besides, doing so will screw the HDD. "Lowlevel formatting" utilities from the manufacturer merely zero the drive.

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/op/actServo-c.html

Fears of weakly magnetized screwdrivers are unwarrented, unless you place them near tape or floppy drivers. There are powerful magnets inside the HDD anyway. Of course, big ones will obviously make it useless, but not destroy HDD data.

This may be a dumb question but. If you format will the operating system remain? and it just delete everything else. Or does it delete EVERYTHING?

Tragic wrote:This may be a dumb question but. If you format will the operating system remain? and it just delete everything else. Or does it delete EVERYTHING?

EVERYTHING.

Tragic wrote:This may be a dumb question but. If you format will the operating system remain? and it just delete everything else. Or does it delete EVERYTHING?

Everything. It's just like formatting a floppy except in this case it's your HD getting the wipe & clean. Hope you have a bootdisc around or things are gonna get real interesting in a bad way when you try to reinstall your OS.