China DOS Union

In terms of potential harm, DEBUG is more significant.

I believe the COPY command is the most harmful under pure DOS and CMD. This is based on facts.

First, it should be noted that the COPY command has no restrictions, meaning its functionality is roughly the same across different operating systems. Second, the command "COPY NUL target file" can run smoothly and damage files. While the FORMAT command can also damage files, those files can be recovered, whereas damage caused by the COPY NUL method is irrecoverable. It can damage not only text files but also binary files. I believe this alone makes it highly harmful, at least in my opinion.

Several users above have mentioned the harmfulness of the DEBUG command. It is true that DEBUG is harmful, but relatively few people know how to use it, and it is relatively complex. Therefore, I personally believe that for something to be considered harmful, it must first be universal and second, easy to master. If it is not easy to master, then it cannot be considered harmful. No matter how powerful the DEBUG command is, if only 10 out of 1,000 people can use it, can it really be considered harmful?

[ Last edited by bagpipe on 2006-7-16 at 15:24 ]

The destructive potential of DEBUG is indeed significant, and it is not easy to master. I now dare not use DEBUG casually. When I do, I connect an old hard drive, as I am truly afraid of it

Debug and format are both external commands; they will not work if the hard drive does not have them.
In contrast, copy is an internal command, which can be used with a small batch file.

The command is the most powerful; internal commands can be called directly:
(Any command) > (Poor file)
The above command line is devastating for the (Poor file).

In the era of Windows 9x, there were cases where system vulnerabilities were exploited to call the format command and format hard drives. Simply browsing the internet could result in your hard drive being wiped clean, which was terrifying. I remember many system optimization software programs would rename the format command back then.

Rename the format command

Then why did you choose this obsolete command?

The `rd /s /q` command is indeed very dangerous. Once, all the data in my entire partition was completely wiped clean. Although it could be recovered, many of the retrieved files were no longer usable, especially large-sized files.

After formatting, you can still use unformat to recover data, but once you perform an lformat, everything will be lost.

Low-level formatting is still powerful.

Discussing this issue is like asking which knife is the most powerful, implying that the more powerful it is, the greater its lethality. In reality, any tool that can be operated has both advantages and dangers; it is just a matter of the difference between a large knife and a small knife, but both can injure people. This is just my humble opinion; please forgive me.