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#16
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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) |
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#17
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Cannot Format CDrive?
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) |
#18
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Cannot Format CDrive?
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. |
#19
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Cannot Format CDrive?
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. |
#20
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Cannot Format CDrive?
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 |
#21
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Cannot Format CDrive?
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. |
#22
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Cannot Format CDrive?
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) |
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