[Fyron]

It is not so much XP that won't let you touch the C: drive from the DOS prompt, as it is the NTFS file system you seem to have formatted with. It is designed to be more secure than FAT 32, and with FAT 32, an easy way to hack someone's install of windows is to go into DOS, which does not require the windows login or password at all, and mess with the files. Windows 2000, of which XP is Version 2, had NTFS as well. You are not required to format using NTFS, but there are problems with FAT 32 and larger hard drives, so you have to partition them accordingly.