DragonFly On-Line Manual Pages

FDFORMAT(1)            DragonFly General Commands Manual           FDFORMAT(1)

NAME
     fdformat -- format floppy disks

SYNOPSIS
     fdformat [-q] [-y] [-v | -n] [-f capacity] [-c cyls] [-s secs] [-h heads]
     fdformat [-r rate] [-g gap3len] [-i intleave] [-S secshft] [-F fillbyte]
              [-t steps_per_track] device_name

DESCRIPTION
     The fdformat utility formats a floppy disk at device device_name.
     Device_name may be given either with a full path name of a device node
     for a floppy disk drive (e.g. /dev/fd0), or a default name in an
     abbreviated form (e.g. fd0).  In the latter case, the name is constructed
     by prepending /dev/ and appending a .capacity to the device_name.  Note
     that any geometry constraints of the device node (minor device number)
     are meaningless, since they're overridden by fdformat.

     The options are as follows:

           -q          Suppress any normal output from the command, and don't
                       ask the user for a confirmation whether to format the
                       floppy disk at device_name.

           -y          Suppress confirmation request by automagically
                       responding "yes", but still report format status.

           -f capacity
                       The normal way to specify the desired formatting
                       parameters.  Capacity is the number of kilobytes to
                       format.  Valid choices are 360, 720, 800, 820, 1200,
                       1440, 1480 or 1720.

           -n          Don't verify floppy after formatting.

           -v          Don't format, verify only.

           -c cyls     Number of cylinders: 40 or 80.

           -s secs     Number of sectors per track: 9, 10, 15 or 18.

           -h heads    Number of floppy heads: 1 or 2.

           -r rate     Data rate: 250, 300 or 500 kbps.

           -g gap3len  Gap length.

           -i intleave
                       Interleave factor.

           -S secshft  Sector size: 0=128, 1=256, 2=512 bytes.

           -F fillbyte
                       Fill byte.

           -t steps_per_track
                       Number of steps per track.  An alternate method to
                       specify the geometry data to write to the floppy disk.

     If the -q flag has not been specified, the user is asked for a
     confirmation of the intended formatting process.  In order to continue,
     an answer of ``y'' must be given.

     Note that fdformat does only perform low-level formatting.  In case you
     wish to create a file system on the medium, see the commands newfs(8) for
     an ufs file system, or newfs_msdos(8) for an MS-DOS (FAT) file system.

EXIT STATUS
     An exit status of 0 is returned upon successful operation.  Exit status 1
     is returned on any errors during floppy formatting, and an exit status of
     2 reflects invalid arguments given to the program (along with an
     appropriate information written to diagnostic output).

DIAGNOSTICS
     Unless -q has been specified, a single letter is printed to standard
     output to inform the user about the progress of work.  First, an `F' is
     printed when the track(s) is being formatted, then a `V' while it's being
     verified, and if an error has been detected, it will finally change to
     `E'.  Detailed status information (cylinder, head and sector number, and
     the exact cause of the error) will then be printed for up to 10 errors.

SEE ALSO
     fdc(4), newfs(8), newfs_msdos(8)

HISTORY
     The fdformat utility has been developed for 386BSD 0.1 and upgraded to
     the new fdc(4) floppy disk driver.  It later became part of the
     FreeBSD 1.1 system.

AUTHORS
     The program has been contributed by Jorg Wunsch, Dresden, with changes by
     Serge Vakulenko and Andrey A. Chernov, Moscow.

DragonFly 4.3                    July 2, 2001                    DragonFly 4.3