Name¶
mformat - add an MSDOS filesystem to a low-level formatted floppy disk
Note of warning¶
This manpage has been automatically generated from mtools's texinfo
documentation, and may not be entirely accurate or complete. See the end of
this man page for details.
Description¶
The mformat command is used to add an MS-DOS file system to a low-level
formatted diskette. Its syntax is:
mformat [-t cylinders|-T tot_sectors] [-h heads] [-s sectors]
[-f size] [-1] [-4] [-8]
[-v volume_label]
[-F] [-S sizecode] [-X]
[-2 sectors_on_track_0] [-3]
[-0 rate_on_track_0] [-A rate_on_other_tracks]
[-M software_sector_size]
[-N serial_number] [-a]
[-C] [-H hidden_sectors] [-I fsVersion]
[-r root_sectors] [-L fat_len]
[-B boot_sector] [-k]
[-m media_descriptor]
[-K backup_boot]
drive:
Mformat adds a minimal MS-DOS file system (boot sector, FAT, and root directory)
to a diskette that has already been formatted by a Unix low-level format.
The following options are supported: (The S, 2, 1 and M options may not exist if
this copy of mtools has been compiled without the USE_2M option)
The following options are the same as for MS-DOS's format command:
Options¶
- v
- Specifies the volume label. A volume label identifies the
disk and can be a maximum of 11 characters. If you omit the -v switch,
mformat will assign no label to the disk.
- f
- Specifies the size of the DOS file system to format. Only a
certain number of predefined sizes are supported by this flag; for others
use the -h/-t/-s flags. The following sizes are supported:
- 160
- 160K, single-sided, 8 sectors per track, 40 cylinders (for
5 1/4 DD)
- 180
- 160K, single-sided, 9 sectors per track, 40 cylinders (for
5 1/4 DD)
- 320
- 320K, double-sided, 8 sectors per track, 40 cylinders (for
5 1/4 DD)
- 360
- 360K, double-sided, 9 sectors per track, 40 cylinders (for
5 1/4 DD)
- 720
- 720K, double-sided, 9 sectors per track, 80 cylinders (for
3 1/2 DD)
- 1200
- 1200K, double-sided, 15 sectors per track, 80 cylinders
(for 5 1/4 HD)
- 1440
- 1440K, double-sided, 18 sectors per track, 80 cylinders
(for 3 1/2 HD)
- 2880
- 2880K, double-sided, 36 sectors per track, 80 cylinders
(for 3 1/2 ED)
- t
- Specifies the number of tracks on the disk.
- T
- Specifies the number of total sectors on the disk. Only one
of these 2 options may be specified (tracks or total sectors)
- h
- The number of heads (sides).
- s
- Specifies the number of sectors per track. If the 2m option
is given, number of 512-byte sector equivalents on generic tracks (i.e.
not head 0 track 0). If the 2m option is not given, number of physical
sectors per track (which may be bigger than 512 bytes).
- 1
- Formats a single side (equivalent to -h 1)
- 4
- Formats a 360K double-sided disk (equivalent to -f 360).
When used together with -the 1 switch, this switch formats a 180K
disk
- 8
- Formats a disk with 8 sectors per track.
MS-DOS format's q, u and b options are not supported, and s has a different
meaning.
The following options are specific to mtools:
- F
- Format the partition as FAT32.
- S
- The size code. The size of the sector is 2 ^ (sizecode +
7).
- X
- formats the disk as an XDF disk. See section XDF, for more
details. The disk has first to be low-level formatted using the xdfcopy
utility included in the fdutils package. XDF disks are used for instance
for OS/2 install disks.
- 2
- 2m format. The parameter to this option describes the
number of sectors on track 0, head 0. This option is recommended for
sectors bigger than normal.
- 3
- don't use a 2m format, even if the current geometry of the
disk is a 2m geometry.
- 0
- Data transfer rate on track 0
- A
- Data transfer rate on tracks other than 0
- M
- software sector size. This parameter describes the sector
size in bytes used by the MS-DOS file system. By default it is the
physical sector size.
- N
- Uses the requested serial number, instead of generating one
automatically
- a
- If this option is given, an Atari style serial number is
generated. Ataris store their serial number in the OEM label.
- C
- creates the disk image file to install the MS-DOS file
system on it. Obviously, this is useless on physical devices such as
floppies and hard disk partitions, but is interesting for image
files.
- H
- number of hidden sectors. This parameter is useful for
formatting hard disk partition, which are not aligned on track boundaries
(i.e. first head of first track doesn't belong to the partition, but
contains a partition table). In that case the number of hidden sectors is
in general the number of sectors per cylinder. This is untested.
- I
- Sets the fsVersion id when formatting a FAT32 drive. In
order to find this out, run minfo on an existing FAT32 drive, and mail me
about it, so I can include the correct value in future versions of
mtools.
- c
- Sets the size of a cluster (in sectors). If this cluster
size would generate a FAT that too big for its number of bits, mtools
automatically increases the cluster size, until the FAT is small
enough.
- d
- Sets the number of FAT copies. Default is 2. This setting
can also be specified using the MTOOLS_NFATS environment variable.
- r
- Sets the size of the root directory (in sectors). Only
applicable to 12 and 16 bit FATs. This setting can also be specified using
the MTOOLS_DIR_LEN environment variable.
- L
- Sets the length of the FAT.
- B
- Use the boot sector stored in the given file or device,
instead of using its own. Only the geometry fields are updated to match
the target disks parameters.
- k
- Keep the existing boot sector as much as possible. Only the
geometry fields and other similar file system data are updated to match
the target disks parameters.
- K
- Sets the sector number where the backup of the boot sector
should be stored (only relevant on FAT32).
- m
- Use a non-standard media descriptor byte for this disk. The
media descriptor is stored at position 21 of the boot sector, and as first
byte in each FAT copy. Using this option may confuse DOS or older mtools
version, and may make the disk unreadable. Only use if you know what you
are doing.
To format a diskette at a density other than the default, you must supply (at
least) those command line parameters that are different from the default.
Mformat returns 0 on success or 1 on failure.
It doesn't record bad block information to the Fat, use mbadblocks for that.
See Also¶
Mtools' texinfo doc
Viewing the texi doc¶
This manpage has been automatically generated from mtools's texinfo
documentation. However, this process is only approximative, and some items,
such as crossreferences, footnotes and indices are lost in this translation
process. Indeed, these items have no appropriate representation in the manpage
format. Moreover, not all information has been translated into the manpage
version. Thus I strongly advise you to use the original texinfo doc. See the
end of this manpage for instructions how to view the texinfo doc.
- *
- To generate a printable copy from the texinfo doc, run the
following commands:
./configure; make dvi; dvips mtools.dvi
- *
- To generate a html copy, run:
./configure; make html
A premade html can be found at
`
http://www.gnu.org/software/mtools/manual/mtools.html'
- *
- To generate an info copy (browsable using emacs' info
mode), run:
./configure; make info
The texinfo doc looks most pretty when printed or as html. Indeed, in the info
version certain examples are difficult to read due to the quoting conventions
used in info.