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
Thefdformat 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.
-fcapacity- 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.
-ccyls- Number of cylinders: 40 or 80.
-ssecs- Number of sectors per track: 9, 10, 15 or 18.
-hheads- Number of floppy heads: 1 or 2.
-rrate- Data rate: 250, 300 or 500 kbps.
-ggap3len- Gap length.
-iintleave- Interleave factor.
-Ssecshft- Sector size: 0=128, 1=256, 2=512 bytes.
-Ffillbyte- Fill byte.
-tsteps_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
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 Jörg Wunsch, Dresden, with changes by Serge Vakulenko and Andrey A. Chernov, Moscow.