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