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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 filesystem to a low-level
       formatted diskette. Its syntax is:

       mformat [-t cylinders] [-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]
         drive:

       Mformat adds a minimal MS-DOS filesystem (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 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, mlabel will assign no label to the disk.

       f      Specifies the size of the  DOS  filesystem  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.

       h      The number of heads (sides).

       n      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.

       MSDOS  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 sizecode. 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 filesystem. 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 filesystem  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  bootsector 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 filesystem data are updated to
              match the target disks parameters.

       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
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       *      To  generate  a  printable  copy  from  the texinfo doc, run the
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