FDFORMAT(1) BSD General Commands Manual FDFORMAT(1)NAMEfdformat — format floppy disks
SYNOPSISfdformat [-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 abbrevi‐
ated 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 respond‐
ing "yes", but still report format status.
-f capacity
The normal way to specify the desired formatting param‐
eters. 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 confirma‐
tion 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.
DIAGNOSTICS
Unless -q has been specified, a single letter is printed to standard out‐
put 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.
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 appro‐
priate information written to diagnostic output).
SEE ALSOfdc(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 Jörg Wunsch, Dresden, with changes by
Serge Vakulenko and Andrey A. Chernov, Moscow.
BSD July 2, 2001 BSD
