NAME

rxformat − format floppy disks

SYNOPSIS

/etc/rxformat [ −d ] special

DESCRIPTION

The rxformat program formats a diskette in the specified drive associated with the special device special. ( Special is normally /dev/rx0, for drive 0, or /dev/rx1, for drive 1.)  By default, the diskette is formatted single density; a −d flag may be supplied to force double density formatting.  Single density is compatible with the IBM 3740 standard (128 bytes/sector).  In double density, each sector contains 256 bytes of data. 

Before formatting a diskette rxformat prompts for verification if standard input is a tty (this allows a user to cleanly abort the operation; note that formatting a diskette will destroy any existing data).  Formatting is done by the hardware.  All sectors are zero-filled. 

DIAGNOSTICS

‘No such device’ means that the drive is not ready, usually because no disk is in the drive or the drive door is open.  Other error messages are selfexplanatory. 

FILES

/dev/rx? 

SEE ALSO

rx(4V)

AUTHOR

Helge Skrivervik

BUGS

A floppy may not be formatted if the header info on sector 1, track 0 has been damaged.  Hence, it is not possible to format a completely degaussed disk.  (This is actually a problem in the hardware.) 

4.2 Berkeley Distribution  —  June 3, 1986