Cannot Format CDrive?

On 3/10/2014, Ken Blake, MVP posted:
On Mon, 10 Mar 2014 13:04:20 -0700, Gene E. Bloch
wrote:


Uh, he said "CDrive", not "CDDrive". That is, "C Drive", not "C D
Drive".


Yep! I had to read the message several times before I realized what
he meant.

If they don't want to confuse readers, people should be very careful
how they write, spell, etc. g

The fact is I had a similar problem with how he typed it, but I managed
to read it a time or two and see what he was saying :-)

My bigger problem was thinking he was crazy to want to format C:, and
similar thoughts about expecting to be able to format it while logged
in to it. Too bad he didn't explain why he was doing it in his OP; once
he did that, he made it seem almost sane after all.

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On 3/08/2014, ArtReid posted:

I go through all steps to get to Computer Mgmt/Disk Mgmt. Screen

When I right click CDrive to select format, the computer will not
allow me to select format. It's there, but in grey and is
un-selectable

I suspect it has something to do with the fact that since I am
running windows form the CDrive I can't format the CDrive as files
are allocated?

So how do I format the CDrive when running Windows, or for that
matter how do I format it at all?

Once you explained why you want to do that, it didn't seem so crazy
after all.

One method I have done is to reinstall Windows from the Restore
partition or CD set, which leaves it in the factory state without any
of your stuff *explicitly* present.

Then I run a disk wiper program in its mode to wipe (overwrite) unused
space, which clears all evidence of what you used to have on the drive.
That can be done while booted to C:.

Did you see how your writing "CDrive" was confusing to me and to
Roderick Stewart? It's always good (less ambiguous) to use conventional
notation.

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On Mon, 10 Mar 2014 13:04:20 -0700, Gene E. Bloch
wrote:

I'm assuming you mean that you want to reformat the "C and D drives",
i.e. the hard drive(s) rather than the "CD drive",

Uh, he said "CDrive", not "CDDrive". That is, "C Drive", not "C D
Drive".

So he did! The lack of spacing confused me. At least I understood what
he was asking though.

Rod.

In the last episode of , philo*
said:

Yep. Windows will not allow you to format the partition you are booted to.

I think before Windows, back in the days of DOS, you could do so .

Yeah, but DOS had very little concept of open file handles (or more
specifically, had little protection around them) since it was inherently
single-tasking, and didn't use mapped memory in the way that modern OSes
do, so such things were possible.

Remember that DOS could boot off of a disk which you would then remove,
to accommodate single-floppy-drive machines, so as a result, .COM files
were always loaded into memory before execution.

It's also enough of an edge case that it doesn't make sense to expend
resources making a OS be able to destroy itself since the next step
(installing a new OS, restoring from backup, etc) requires external
media, it's generally sufficient to allow that external media to handle
destroying the existing partition.

DBAN is great for this, if you don't have something that's otherwise
capable. A Windows installation disk works too.

--
Critics are like eunuchs in a harem: they know how it's done, they've
seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves.

On 3/10/14 7:18 AM, philo wrote:
On 03/09/2014 11:10 PM, DevilsPGD wrote:



snip

In general, you don't format the partition that you're running from, you
boot from another partition/device to format that one.

What would you expect to happen if you formatted a drive that is in use?




Yep. Windows will not allow you to format the partition you are booted to.

I think before Windows, back in the days of DOS, you could do so .

In the early Windows days, when the commands in the command window were
true DOS commands, you could do it. In this case, you simply loaded
format.com, and away you went.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 25.0
Thunderbird 24.3.0

On 3/10/2014 4:49 PM, Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On 3/08/2014, ArtReid posted:

I go through all steps to get to Computer Mgmt/Disk Mgmt. Screen

When I right click CDrive to select format, the computer will not
allow me to select format. It's there, but in grey and is un-selectable

I suspect it has something to do with the fact that since I am running
windows form the CDrive I can't format the CDrive as files are allocated?

So how do I format the CDrive when running Windows, or for that matter
how do I format it at all?

Once you explained why you want to do that, it didn't seem so crazy
after all.

One method I have done is to reinstall Windows from the Restore
partition or CD set, which leaves it in the factory state without any of
your stuff *explicitly* present.

Then I run a disk wiper program in its mode to wipe (overwrite) unused
space, which clears all evidence of what you used to have on the drive.
That can be done while booted to C:.

Did you see how your writing "CDrive" was confusing to me and to
Roderick Stewart? It's always good (less ambiguous) to use conventional
notation.


I don't know if it still works, but there was a windows repair disk
that, if used properly, would do a format. It's been so long that I've
forgotten the gory details. You had to do something to get to the
command prompt, and have the format command available.

On 3/10/2014, charlie posted:
On 3/10/2014 4:49 PM, Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On 3/08/2014, ArtReid posted:

I go through all steps to get to Computer Mgmt/Disk Mgmt. Screen

When I right click CDrive to select format, the computer will not
allow me to select format. It's there, but in grey and is
un-selectable

I suspect it has something to do with the fact that since I am
running
windows form the CDrive I can't format the CDrive as files are
allocated?

So how do I format the CDrive when running Windows, or for that
matter
how do I format it at all?

Once you explained why you want to do that, it didn't seem so crazy
after all.

One method I have done is to reinstall Windows from the Restore
partition or CD set, which leaves it in the factory state without
any of
your stuff *explicitly* present.

Then I run a disk wiper program in its mode to wipe (overwrite)
unused
space, which clears all evidence of what you used to have on the
drive.
That can be done while booted to C:.

Did you see how your writing "CDrive" was confusing to me and to
Roderick Stewart? It's always good (less ambiguous) to use
conventional
notation.


I don't know if it still works, but there was a windows repair disk
that, if used properly, would do a format. It's been so long that
I've forgotten the gory details. You had to do something to get to
the command prompt, and have the format command available.

I'm very rusty on all of that stuff. I guess if I had a problem, I'd
have to do a lot of research before I could start to save my butt...

I do have the Macrium boot CD and I back up...occasionally.

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)