18 insightful thoughts

  1. @Graeme: Ah okay, but I’m presuming you get an error after clicking the “Format” button.

    In Windows Vista, by just selecting “Format” from the right-click menu on the drive, you’re prompted with this error.

  2. I think I should get some sought of bravery award:

    C:\Windows\system32>format C:
    The type of the file system is NTFS.
    Enter current volume label for drive C: Prime

    WARNING, ALL DATA ON NON-REMOVABLE DISK
    DRIVE C: WILL BE LOST!
    Proceed with Format (Y/N)? y
    Formatting 150005M
    System Partition is not allowed to be formatted.

  3. @Long: You’re right, I just tested and it does go a lot further before failing: right-click, Format, set options in the dialog, click Start, answer “Are you sure” prompt and only then does it fail. The error message is not as descriptive as that found in Vista (Windows cannot format the drive, check that no disk utilities are using it and no folder windows are displaying it), I was thinking of the “Change drive letter” dialog in disk management, which clearly says that you can’t change the drive letter of your boot or system volume.

  4. @Christopher Hawkins:
    it’s actually very creepy how far that process got before it stopped itself.
    almost wet myself reading your post!

  5. Try this one then:

    DISKPART
    SELECT DISK 0
    CLEAN

    To guarantee that will work with the OS running either, but it’s more destructive than FORMAT.

  6. I love how they say it “could” cause your computer to stop working. I think that is exactly how you would cause your computer to stop working.

  7. About 6 weeks ago, the mainstream press (and a lot of technology blogs) had a minor stroke about Vista’s voice recognition system, and how someone could remotely format your drive by having you play a sound file that the VRS would interpret to be voice commands, even claiming that there were those who tested it and found it to be true.

    Guess this kind of proves them to be liars, eh?

  8. What Karma said!

    You can’t even by naked machines anymore, IE with no OS pre-installed.

  9. There’s no definition of “stop working”. The computer would work absolutely fine, except you would need to take some time installing Linux.

    That message was written for noobs.

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