format CD

[senne]

i want to make a cd, when you put it in your drive, that it begins automaticly to format your drive?? is that possible??

[Longhair]

Why would you want to do that for?

Even if it was possible, I don't think anybody will tell you just because of the fact that many would think you would use it for ruining people's lives.

[senne]

no, for someone, i want to make a boot menu in dos, then he asks, wich drive do you want to format, when you press c, he formats the c drive?? is that ruining??

[Longhair]

goto bootdisk.com then

[Space Between]

Your not even thinking this through are you??? first off not all format util's can format any type of FS.  Like
Format for win95 cant format xp's ntfs (can it ). I dont even think it can read it at all.  You need to fdisk
first.


Here's a quick 98 compt. way...you must have choice.com in the disk/image.
remember you have to fdisk first if it is a unreadable FS.  then you will have
to reboot to then...so your proabably looking at a reboot first.

@echo off
echo.
echo.
echo  Would you like to run FDisk first?
echo  Y = Yes
echo  N = No
echo.
CHOICE.COM \"\" /C:YN /N /T:N,20
IF ERRORLEVEL==2 GOTO _formhdd
::No need for a second label since only No will affect the outcome.
FDISK
:_formhdd
echo.
echo.
echo   Format which drive letter...enter the letter.
echo.
echo   C D E F G H I J K
:: remember dos will not see the drive letter like window does...so x: in windows could be like C: in dos
CHOICE.COM \"\" /C:CDEFGHIJK /N
IF ERRORLEVEL==9 SET foohdd=K
IF ERRORLEVEL==9 SET foohdd=J
IF ERRORLEVEL==9 SET foohdd=I
IF ERRORLEVEL==9 SET foohdd=H
IF ERRORLEVEL==9 SET foohdd=G
IF ERRORLEVEL==9 SET foohdd=F
IF ERRORLEVEL==9 SET foohdd=E
IF ERRORLEVEL==9 SET foohdd=D
IF ERRORLEVEL==9 SET foohdd=C
FORMAT %foohdd%: /Y
:: you might have to use  FORMAT /Y %foohdd%:  to get it to auto format...if
:: that doesnt work find a different format and use one that turns off confirm.

[Space Between]

OOps..copy and paste...use this instead
(RIght now any valid input will result in C: obviously...so use the below insteaD)

IF ERRORLEVEL==9 SET foohdd=K
IF ERRORLEVEL==8 SET foohdd=J
IF ERRORLEVEL==7 SET foohdd=I
IF ERRORLEVEL==6 SET foohdd=H
IF ERRORLEVEL==5 SET foohdd=G
IF ERRORLEVEL==4 SET foohdd=F
IF ERRORLEVEL==3 SET foohdd=E
IF ERRORLEVEL==2 SET foohdd=D
IF ERRORLEVEL==1 SET foohdd=C

[gosh]

That's the whole point of winpe!  With winpe you can auto repartition and reformat you're drives, then call the xp setup program.  Dos is dead, it's 20 years old and ain't getting younger.  Learn the new technology.

-gosh

[Guest]

Gosh,

If you think DOS is dead, then why haven't you wiped all references to \"DOS\" from YOUR hard-drive?

Senne,

Are you sure a CD will be large enough to hold that little batch file you need? I suggest something like a 120GB portable drive.

You're killin me here.

[senne]

he still goes automaticly to the c drive!!

[gosh]

Guest, i have no idea what you are talking about.  I dont have \"dos\" in my hard drive or whatever your point was.

Look i'll show you guys step by step how to do this.

1 - Make a file called CFGDisk.CMD and put it in the system32 folder of winpe.  In this file put this:
DISKPART /s DISKSCR.TXT
FORMAT C: /fs:ntfs /q /v:\"\" /y
2 - Make a file called diskscr.txt and put this in it:
select disk 0
create partition primary
assign letter c
3 - Now in startnet.cmd, at the bottom put this:
cfgdisk.cmd

Now when you boot from winpe, it auto reparitions everything and assigns it drive C.  Then it formats it as ntfs.  If you want to then start the xp/server2k3 install put this in startnet.cmd:

:\i386\winnt32.exe /syspart:c:

This will make the drive bootable, copy the xp files, then restart to xp setup.  So very quickly you can make a cd that auto repartitions,formats, and installs xp.  This is how longhorn works.  The secret about longhorn setup, is you've always been able to do a longhorn style setup in xp, just no one knows how.

For the syspart see http://www.jsifaq.com/SUBN/tip6600/rh6680.htm
For the script go to http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/hwdev/tech/s...preinstall.mspx

Winpe is very cool and will kill crappy DOS.

-gosh

[Space Between]

gosh you do have DOS on your machine. I would hate to see any m$ operate without it (although i hear
longhorn might actually do it being DB driven...who knows).

gosh another  thing you fail to come to light in. Who cares about the simple .bat files and switch's,
what does pe's formatting use as a security measure and how does it read hdd's that are already
formatted???

xp's formatting utility up'd the security and is very unfriendly. I hope you know the answers to these
questions and are not recommending something to people you just assume to work fine like good old
DOS tools.

btw why winpe??? you must not of heard of Knoppix, or understand that a linux format util is much more
advanced and versatile.

[acbella]

OK I am thinking about getting knoppix to put it on my other pos (not point of scale) pc. But i actually wanna install it on the computer. To do the install you have to defrag. But this computer had a moron for an owner before me. So they probably NEVER defraged the hdd. THis is the reason why i would like to use a gdisk (or fdisk whatever you know it as to wipe the hdd. So would that be the right thing to do in this case? And where can I go to get a Gdisk? FOr those who don't know a gdisk is a floppy you put in and wipes the hdd clean can do the same as a Fdisk just the gdisk is SO much easier. THe pc I am reffering too has windows 98 on it...See why i wanna change that..







[quote name=\'Space Between\' post=\'10233\' date=\'Jun 18 2003, 12:12 PM\']gosh you do have DOS on your machine. I would hate to see any m$ operate without it (although i hear
longhorn might actually do it being DB driven...who knows).

gosh another  thing you fail to come to light in. Who cares about the simple .bat files and switch's,
what does pe's formatting use as a security measure and how does it read hdd's that are already
formatted???

xp's formatting utility up'd the security and is very unfriendly. I hope you know the answers to these
questions and are not recommending something to people you just assume to work fine like good old
DOS tools.

btw why winpe??? you must not of heard of Knoppix, or understand that a linux format util is much more
advanced and versatile.[/quote]