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I am following the instructions at http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/52129-disk-clean-clean-all-diskpart-command.html to erase my entire HD before sending my laptop somewhere. In particular, I am issuing the diskpart command from a "command prompt at boot". I only have one HD on the laptop, Disk 0, and I selected it before "clean all". The above webpage says it takes approximately 1 hour per 300GB, and I have 300GB but it is still not done after 2 hours. However, I also note that the HD LED is not showing any activity.
Has the process hung due to the fact that I am cleaning the same HD that I am operating from? Is it advisable to forcibly shut the machine down, then haul the HD out into an external enclosure so that I can use another computer to look/see what was erased? Will it hurt the HD to interrupt such a (possibly hung) erasing procedure?
I am running Windows 7 Pro 64-bit on a Toshiba Satellite Pro S750-008 (a.k.a. PSSERC-00800)
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Answer accepted by question author
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/682-command-prompt-startup.html is clear: you must boot from your Windows 7 installation disk - not the hard disk.
Any Windows 7 installation disk will do the job. It does not need to be the system specific installation disk.
Thanks for that, DominicP.
Here is where I strayed from the beaten path. In the link in my original post, I followed the link for "command prompt at boot". From there, I followed the link for Advanced Boot Options. From those combinations of links, it seemed that it was possible to erase the HD from which the system booted. I couldn't fathom why, but I assumed that it was because command prompt at boot was self-contained in memory.
From the feedback that I've gotten on this, however, I am obviously wrong. That probably applies to when you get command prompt at boot from a repair disc. For Toshiba laptops, we are instructed to make a set of recovery discs rather than a repair disc. Fortunately, when I boot off the first disc, I get the option of going to system recovery options, and from there, I found my way to the system prompt at boot. So far, the erase-all seems to be proceeding sanely, judging only from the fact that the HD LED is on continuously.
Thanks for getting me back on track!
