Hi all,
It will be nice to know if there is any way to format
a disk drive silently. I tried using commands like
system(“format d:”)
however it tries to communicate to user and throws
questions like "y/n ? " .
Is there any documented or undocumented calls to do
the same ? I could not find anything in MSDN on the
same.
Thanks & Regards
Somsubhra Raj
If you think you can, you can.
If you think you can’t, you are right.
Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page
http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs
> It will be nice to know if there is any way to format
a disk drive silently.
You may want to try http://www.sysinternals.com/sourcecode/fmifs.html.
Regards,
Alex Shvedov
----- Original Message -----
From: “Somsubhra Raj”
To: “Windows System Software Devs Interest List”
Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2005 6:49 AM
Subject: [ntdev] silent formatting of Disk drive
> Hi all,
>
> It will be nice to know if there is any way to format
> a disk drive silently. I tried using commands like
>
> system(“format d:”)
>
> however it tries to communicate to user and throws
> questions like "y/n ? " .
>
> Is there any documented or undocumented calls to do
> the same ? I could not find anything in MSDN on the
> same.
>
> Thanks & Regards
>
> Somsubhra Raj
>
> If you think you can, you can.
> If you think you can’t, you are right.
>
>
>
> ____________________________________________________
> Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page
> http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs
>
>
> —
> Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
> http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
>
> You are currently subscribed to ntdev as: xxxxx@bellsouth.net
> To unsubscribe send a blank email to xxxxx@lists.osr.com
>
If you’re working in user mode and can get away with supporting
Win2K3 onwards, you really should use the VDS management API for this.
Mark
At 05:07 PM 8/30/2005, xxxxx@Home wrote:
>It will be nice to know if there is any way to format
>a disk drive silently.
You may want to try http://www.sysinternals.com/sourcecode/fmifs.html.
Regards,
Alex Shvedov
----- Original Message ----- From: “Somsubhra Raj”
>To: “Windows System Software Devs Interest List”
>Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2005 6:49 AM
>Subject: [ntdev] silent formatting of Disk drive
>
>
>>Hi all,
>>
>>It will be nice to know if there is any way to format
>>a disk drive silently. I tried using commands like
>>
>>system(“format d:”)
>>
>>however it tries to communicate to user and throws
>>questions like "y/n ? " .
>>
>>Is there any documented or undocumented calls to do
>>the same ? I could not find anything in MSDN on the
>>same.
>>
>>Thanks & Regards
>>
>>Somsubhra Raj
>>
>>If you think you can, you can.
>>If you think you can’t, you are right.
>>
>>
>>
>> ____________________________________________________
>>Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page
>>http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs
>>
>>
>>—
>>Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
>>http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
>>
>>You are currently subscribed to ntdev as: xxxxx@bellsouth.net
>>To unsubscribe send a blank email to xxxxx@lists.osr.com
>
>
>
>—
>Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
>http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
>
>You are currently subscribed to ntdev as: xxxxx@muttsnuts.com
>To unsubscribe send a blank email to xxxxx@lists.osr.com
Why on earth would I want you to format my drive without me knowing about
it?
–
The personal opinion of
Gary G. Little
“Somsubhra Raj” wrote in message
news:xxxxx@ntdev…
> Hi all,
>
> It will be nice to know if there is any way to format
> a disk drive silently. I tried using commands like
>
> system(“format d:”)
>
> however it tries to communicate to user and throws
> questions like "y/n ? " .
>
> Is there any documented or undocumented calls to do
> the same ? I could not find anything in MSDN on the
> same.
>
> Thanks & Regards
>
> Somsubhra Raj
>
> If you think you can, you can.
> If you think you can’t, you are right.
>
>
>
> ____________________________________________________
> Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page
> http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs
>
>
> Why on earth would I want you to format my drive without me
knowing about
it?
–
The personal opinion of
Gary G. Little
Well, one case where this is particularly useful is when you want to
automatically format a partition on a virtual disk drive for a user. I do
agree with your sentiment in general, though. As for the OP, there are some
hackish ways you can do it:
If you’re on Windows XP+ you can do:
%WINDIR%\system32\format.com /y /V: /fs:
Otherwise, if you’re running 2K or below, you need to do something a bit
more ghetto:
cmd /C “@echo | %WINDIR%\system32\format.com /V: /fs:
”
Obviously this is pretty hackish, but it does work.
Normally that’s a sentiment I’d agree with, but in SAN management
drive formatting is often part of the process of auto-provisioning LUNs.
Mark
At 12:20 AM 8/31/2005, Gary G. Little wrote:
Why on earth would I want you to format my drive without me knowing about
it?
–
The personal opinion of
Gary G. Little
“Somsubhra Raj” wrote in message
>news:xxxxx@ntdev…
> > Hi all,
> >
> > It will be nice to know if there is any way to format
> > a disk drive silently. I tried using commands like
> >
> > system(“format d:”)
> >
> > however it tries to communicate to user and throws
> > questions like "y/n ? " .
> >
> > Is there any documented or undocumented calls to do
> > the same ? I could not find anything in MSDN on the
> > same.
> >
> > Thanks & Regards
> >
> > Somsubhra Raj
> >
> > If you think you can, you can.
> > If you think you can’t, you are right.
> >
> >
> >
> > ____________________________________________________
> > Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page
> > http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs
> >
> >
>
>
>
>—
>Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
>http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
>
>You are currently subscribed to ntdev as: xxxxx@muttsnuts.com
>To unsubscribe send a blank email to xxxxx@lists.osr.com
This is exactly the reason why we silently format virtual drive, too. At NT4 and above we use already mentioned APIs (FormatEx) described at System Internals. At w9x we also use format.com but there is an undocumented parameter which allows to avoid echoing Y to format. I don’t remember it (/auto?) but Google would find it.
Best regards,
Michal Vodicka
UPEK, Inc.
[xxxxx@upek.com, http://www.upek.com]
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com[SMTP:xxxxx@lists.osr.com] on behalf of Matt Miller[SMTP:xxxxx@positivenetworks.net]
Reply To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2005 6:55 PM
To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
Subject: RE: [ntdev] silent formatting of Disk drive
> Why on earth would I want you to format my drive without me
> knowing about
> it?
>
> –
> The personal opinion of
> Gary G. Little
Well, one case where this is particularly useful is when you want to
automatically format a partition on a virtual disk drive for a user. I do
agree with your sentiment in general, though. As for the OP, there are some
hackish ways you can do it:
If you’re on Windows XP+ you can do:
%WINDIR%\system32\format.com /y /V: /fs:
>
> Otherwise, if you’re running 2K or below, you need to do something a bit
> more ghetto:
>
> cmd /C “@echo | %WINDIR%\system32\format.com /V: /fs:
> ”
>
> Obviously this is pretty hackish, but it does work.
>
>
> —
> Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
>
> You are currently subscribed to ntdev as: xxxxx@upek.com
> To unsubscribe send a blank email to xxxxx@lists.osr.com
>
Unfortunatelly I watched Symantec’s Ghost do exactly that, clobber my XP
partition information and turn a perfectly working system in to a boat
anchor. I stand by my question. You format ANTYHING on my system and I want
to know about it.
–
Gary G. Little
“Matt Miller” wrote in message
news:xxxxx@ntdev…
>> Why on earth would I want you to format my drive without me
>> knowing about
>> it?
>>
>> –
>> The personal opinion of
>> Gary G. Little
>
> Well, one case where this is particularly useful is when you want to
> automatically format a partition on a virtual disk drive for a user. I do
> agree with your sentiment in general, though. As for the OP, there are
> some
> hackish ways you can do it:
>
> If you’re on Windows XP+ you can do:
>
> %WINDIR%\system32\format.com /y /V: /fs:
>
> Otherwise, if you’re running 2K or below, you need to do something a bit
> more ghetto:
>
> cmd /C “@echo | %WINDIR%\system32\format.com /V: /fs:
> ”
>
> Obviously this is pretty hackish, but it does work.
>
>
Hi all,
Thanks for all of your inputs. It is really healpful.
My requirement exactly what Matt Miller has mentioned.
I would like to format a virtual disk for an user.
Gary, in this case we will surely want to inform the
user that the virtual drive is gointo be formatted for
him, however I dont want want any user interaction
input from him. So, your concern is justified, which
can be concern of any potential user and we want to
respect that while doing our work silently.
Thanks
Somsubhra Raj
— “Gary G. Little” wrote:
> Unfortunatelly I watched Symantec’s Ghost do exactly
> that, clobber my XP
> partition information and turn a perfectly working
> system in to a boat
> anchor. I stand by my question. You format ANTYHING
> on my system and I want
> to know about it.
>
> –
> Gary G. Little
>
> “Matt Miller” wrote
> in message
> news:xxxxx@ntdev…
> >> Why on earth would I want you to format my drive
> without me
> >> knowing about
> >> it?
> >>
> >> –
> >> The personal opinion of
> >> Gary G. Little
> >
> > Well, one case where this is particularly useful
> is when you want to
> > automatically format a partition on a virtual disk
> drive for a user. I do
> > agree with your sentiment in general, though. As
> for the OP, there are
> > some
> > hackish ways you can do it:
> >
> > If you’re on Windows XP+ you can do:
> >
> > %WINDIR%\system32\format.com /y /V: /fs:> type>
> >
> > Otherwise, if you’re running 2K or below, you need
> to do something a bit
> > more ghetto:
> >
> > cmd /C “@echo | %WINDIR%\system32\format.com
> /V: /fs:
> > ”
> >
> > Obviously this is pretty hackish, but it does
> work.
> >
> >
>
>
>
> —
> Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
> http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
>
> You are currently subscribed to ntdev as:
> xxxxx@yahoo.com
> To unsubscribe send a blank email to
> xxxxx@lists.osr.com
>
If you think you can, you can.
If you think you can’t, you are right.
____________________________________________________
Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page
http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs