I was just wondering how many times we've done them. I probably have formatted c: more times than I can remember. Not being the huge linux geek that many of you may be, I have no experience with formatting Linux drives.
There is also a comparing list
hereAnd yes, I know this is on slashdot, and for some reason the forum now won't let me use a normal link.
i usually let install guis do the formatting, or do a make2fs -j for linux partitions (format C: and rm -rf / are not as analogous as they might seem).
however, i did do a rather silly thing as root (on my desktop) the other night, sloppily hammering out the keys and over-using tabbed completion as root. source ~/.bash_history. oops. what other silly and potentially disastrous things have other people done?
oh, and for erasing:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda; dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/hda; dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda; dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/hda; dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda; dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/hda; dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda;
that ought to wipe it pretty good.