Linux manual pages Section 8  

Name

fdformat — low-level format a floppy disk

Synopsis

fdformat [options] device

DESCRIPTION

fdformat does a low-level format on a floppy disk. device is usually one of the following (for floppy devices the major = 2, and the minor is shown for informational purposes only):

        /dev/fd0d360  (minor = 4)
        /dev/fd0h1200 (minor = 8)
        /dev/fd0D360  (minor = 12)
        /dev/fd0H360  (minor = 12)
        /dev/fd0D720  (minor = 16)
        /dev/fd0H720  (minor = 16)
        /dev/fd0h360  (minor = 20)
        /dev/fd0h720  (minor = 24)
        /dev/fd0H1440 (minor = 28)

        /dev/fd1d360  (minor = 5)
        /dev/fd1h1200 (minor = 9)
        /dev/fd1D360  (minor = 13)
        /dev/fd1H360  (minor = 13)
        /dev/fd1D720  (minor = 17)
        /dev/fd1H720  (minor = 17)
        /dev/fd1h360  (minor = 21)
        /dev/fd1h720  (minor = 25)
        /dev/fd1H1440 (minor = 29)

The generic floppy devices, /dev/fd0 and /dev/fd1, will fail to work with fdformat when a non-standard format is being used, or if the format has not been autodetected earlier. In this case, use setfdprm(8) to load the disk parameters.

OPTIONS

−f, −−from N

Start at the track N (default is 0).

−t, −−to N

Stop at the track N.

−r, −−repair N

Try to repair tracks failed during the verification (max N retries).

−n, −−no−verify

Skip the verification that is normally performed after the formatting.

−V, −−version

Display version information and exit.

−h, −−help

Display help text and exit.

SEE ALSO

fd(4), setfdprm(8), mkfs(8), emkfs(8)

AUTHOR

Werner Almesberger (almesber@nessie.cs.id.ethz.ch)

AVAILABILITY

The fdformat command is part of the util-linux package and is available from ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.


  Copyright 1992, 1993 Rickard E. Faith (faithcs.unc.edu)
May be distributed under the GNU General Public License