freebsd-dev/usr.sbin/fdformat/fdformat.1

.\" Copyright (C) 1993, 1994, 1995 by Joerg Wunsch, Dresden
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.Dd September 16, 1993
.Os
.Dt FDFORMAT 1
.Sh NAME
.Nm fdformat
.Nd format floppy disks
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm fdformat
.Bq Fl q
.Bq Fl v
.Bq Fl n
.Bq Fl f Ar capacity
.Bq Fl c Ar cyls
.Bq Fl s Ar secs
.Bq Fl h Ar heads
.br
.Bq Fl r Ar rate
.Bq Fl g Ar gap3len
.Bq Fl i Ar intleave
.Bq Fl S Ar secshft
.Bq Fl F Ar fillbyte
.Bq Fl t Ar steps_per_track
.Ar device_name
.Sh DESCRIPTION
.Nm Fdformat
formats a floppy disk at device
.Ar device_name .
.Ar Device_name
should be a character device; it may be given either with a full path
name of a raw device node for a floppy disk drive
.Pq e.\ g. Pa /dev/rfd0 ,
or default name in an abbreviated form
.Pq e.\ g. Em fd0 .
In the latter case, the name is constructed by prepending
.Pa /dev/r
and appending a
.Em .capacity
to the
.Ar device_name .
Note that any geometry constraints of the device node
.Pq minor device number
are meaningless, since they're overridden by
.Nm fdformat .
.Pp
The options are as follows:
.Bl -tag -width 10n -offset indent
.It Fl q
supress any normal output from the command, and don't ask the
user for a confirmation whether to format the floppy disk at
.Ar device_name .
.It Fl f Ar capacity
The normal way to specify the desired formatting parameters.
.Ar Capacity
is the number of kilobytes to format.
.It Fl n
Don't verify floppy after formatting.
.It Fl v
Don't format, verify only.
.It Fl c Ar cyls
.It Fl s Ar secs
.It Fl h Ar heads
.It Fl r Ar rate
.It Fl g Ar gap3len
.It Fl i Ar intleave
.It Fl S Ar secshft
.It Fl F Ar fillbyte
.It Fl t Ar steps_per_track
An alternate method to specify the geometry data to write to the floppy disk.
.El

If the
.Fl q
flag has not been specified, the user is asked for a confirmation
of the intended formatting process. In order to continue, an answer
of
.Dq y
must be given.
.Pp
Note that
.Nm
does only perform low-level formatting.  In case you wish to create
a file system on the medium, see the commands
.Xr newfs 8
for an
.Em ufs
file system, or
.Xr mkdosfs 1
for an
.Em MS-DOS (FAT)
file system.
.Sh DIAGNOSTICS
Unless
.Fl q
has been specified, a single letter is printed to standard output
to inform the user about the progress of work.
First, an
.Sq Em F
is printed when the track(s) is being formatted, then a
.Sq Em V
while it's being verified, and if an error has been detected, it
will finally change to
.Sq Em E .
.Pp
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
appropriate information written to diagnostic output).
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr fdc 4 ,
.Xr newfs 8 ,
.Xr mkdosfs 1 .
.Sh HISTORY
.Nm Fdformat
has been developed for 386BSD 0.1
and upgraded to the new
.Xr fd 4
floppy disk driver. It later became part of the
.Em FreeBSD
system, release 1.1.
.Sh AUTHOR
The program has been contributed by
.if n Joerg Wunsch,
.if t J\(:org Wunsch,
Dresden, with changes by Serge Vakulenko and Andrey A. Chernov, Moscow.