I've used phydiskwrite.exe a lot.  Just check the volume 
name/information and compare it to what phydiskwrite shows. When you 
start the program it will ask you which disk to write to with names and 
everything so you are sure. I have tried to overwrite the c: drive with 
it, it won't let you if that's the drive you booted with.

Cheers!
Michael

David Burgess wrote:
> On 8/21/07, Duncan Drury <DDrury at christian dash aid dot org> wrote:
>   
>>>> C:\>physdiskwrite.exe
>>>>         
>> I was running physdiskwrite from the cmd line. According to the docs if
>> I include no arguments it should let me know which drive I am writing to
>> - but it isn't.
>>
>> How can I be sure it won't write to my hard drive?  I can't afford to
>> risk this 6000 miles away from my backup!
>>     
>
> I haven't used physdiskwrite in a while, but when I used it it asked
> me at some point before writing which disk I wanted to write to, and
> if memory serves me, I had the feeling I was passing the point of safe
> return when I actually hadn't.
>
> To answer your question, I guess the only way to be totally sure not
> to overwrite your hard disk is to disconnect it and boot your computer
> from a live CD or some such thing.
>
> But I'm sure somebody here has used physdiskwrite more recently than I
> and could brief you on the order of things when you do run it. I'm not
> currently running windows so I'm not much help.
>
> db
>
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