NAME

fdformat − format diskettes

SYNOPSIS

/etc/fdformat [ −h ] special

DESCRIPTION

The fdformat program formats a diskette in the specified drive associated with the special file special. (Special is /dev/rfd0 for drive 0.)  By default, the diskette is formatted for low-density (360K on the IBM RT PC, or 720K on the IBM 6152 Academic System); a −h flag may be supplied to force high-density formatting (1.2m on the IBM RT PC, or 1.4m on the IBM 6152 Academic System).  5 1/4" PC-DOS diskettes (360k) contain 40x2 tracks, each with 9 sectors (for a total of 720 sectors).  5 1/4" high-capacity diskettes (1.2m) contain 80x2 tracks, each with 15 sectors (for a total of 2400 sectors).  3 1/2" low-density diskettes contain 80 tracks, each with 9 sectors (for a total of 1440 sectors).  3 1/2" high-capacity diskettes contain 80 tracks, each with 19 sectors (for a total of 2880 sectors).  The sector size is 512 bytes for both diskette types. 

Before formatting a diskette, fdformat prompts for verification.  This allows a user to abort the operation cleanly.  Note that formatting a diskette destroys existing data. 

Fdformat does not write DOS directory information on the disk. 

FILES

/dev/rfd[01]

SEE ALSO

fd(4), flcopy(8R)

PRPQs 5799-WZQ/5799-PFF: IBM/4.3  —  Dec 1987