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I have a Win 98 SE based laptop that needs its hard drive wiped. What is the DOS command for doing that?
Boot with a floppy boot disk and format C: from that. You shouldn't try to format the drive you're currently booted from.
At the A:\> prompt, type in;
formant/c/autotest c:
and hit Enter. The drive will be wiped (to a degree). If you really want it wiped, run a zero-fill utility on it.
It's a good day when you learn something
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It's déjà vu (all over again)
"C:\format c:" is just a little too specific, and not likely to work.
As we mentioned last night (and as Dan mentions), typically performed from a bootdisk, but you can do it from the hard disk if booted to DOS (a bit inelegant though)
Simply:
format c:
The file, format.com, should be on the bootdisk, and is also found in c:\windows\command
format /?
.. presents you with a brief outline of the various switches
If you get people asking the wrong questions, you don't have to worry about the answers
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Dan's post was a test. Did you spot the deliberate mistake:
formant/c/autotest c:
I did, it's:
format/c/autotest c:
Being practically perfect in every way I'll just have to slap Dan's hand.
DerekW (Alias Mary Poppins)
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ooops. ;>{ Thanks Derek. My proofreading must have been too fast...
It's a good day when you learn something
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Sorry Derek, aka Ms. Poppins :)
format/c/autotest c:
correct syntax is format /c /autotest c:
will not work with no space after format :)
WILL POST FOR FOOD.
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Yeah, back in the dark and dirty days of 'DOS only' you always put a space before a "switch", so it's dir /p and so on.
Mostly the DOS commands run without the space nowadays. I usually put the space in, text book fashion, on the basis that I know for certain it will work that way. Good practice sorta thing....
Well, what can you expect from someone who's practically perfect (I'm still working on the "practically").
DerekW
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Yeah Derek, I also usually still opt for the belt and suspenders approach, too.
It often saves me a lot of time retyping commands.
HTH
Dave
If a turtle doesn't have a shell, is he homeless or naked?
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That's probably why (in my case) the spaces don't matter. I've been using MSDOS 7.10 for so long now.... 6.22 and prior seems like it was so long ago.
It's a good day when you learn something
0
Formatted drive can be recovered by data recovery software. you'd better use professional wipe tool.
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Dan, I'm still booting DOS 6.22/WFW 3.11 on one partition here, mostly for nostalgia's sake. It's fun to play around with occasionally. I still get a kick out of Wolfenstein 3D.
HTH
Dave
If a turtle doesn't have a shell, is he homeless or naked?
0
Hi Dave,
It's been ~years~ since I've been in the Win 3.x realm. I do occasionally run winfile.exe (under 98SE) to "adjust" stubborn file associations, but that's about it. I've "cleaned house" of all the old systems (386/486 etc) and tossed them. I mailed jboy all my old 72 pin memory modules and a CPU chip or two for use in his "museum", but dumped all the rest.
Wolfenstein 3D - That's one I've never even seen. I've heard it mentioned MANY times, but I've never had the opportunity to see what it is. Is this game like an early Duke Nukem? (I mean characters etc.) or is it a different theme?
It's a good day when you learn something
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 Win 98se boot disc
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Windows Update Failure
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