Patent ID: 7120735

Claim:
A method for automatically formatting removable media, comprising the operations of: intercepting a write request to write to removable media, wherein the write request is preserved by a shell extension; determining whether the write request is directed to a supported drive; if the write request is directed to the supported drive, determining if the removable media is unformatted; if the write request is directed to the supported drive, automatically preparing the removable media for content when the removable media is unformatted based on at least determining a drive type of a drive containing the removable media, and detecting a media type of the removable media present in the drive, wherein the removable media is prepared for content without user interaction, and wherein the preparing of the removable media for content without user interaction is associated with the preparing of the removable media for content; if the write request is directed to the supported drive, providing the write request that was preserved by the shell extension to an operating system, wherein the operating system performs a write operation on the removable media; and if the write request is not directed to the supported drive, providing the write request that was preserved by the shell extension to an operating system without determining if the removable media is unformatted and without automatically preparing the removable media for content, wherein the operating system performs the write operation on the removable media.