disk-utils/fdformat.8

   1 .\" Copyright 1992, 1993 Rickard E. Faith (faith@cs.unc.edu)
   2 .\" May be distributed under the GNU General Public License
   3 .TH FDFORMAT 8 "July 2014" "util-linux" "System Administration"
   4 .SH NAME
   5 fdformat \- low-level format a floppy disk
   6 .SH SYNOPSIS
   7 .B fdformat
   8 .RI [options] " device"
   9 .SH DESCRIPTION
  10 .B fdformat
  11 does a low-level format on a floppy disk.
  12 .I device
  13 is usually one of the following (for floppy devices the major = 2, and the
  14 minor is shown for informational purposes only):
  15 .sp
  16 .nf
  17 .RS
  18 /dev/fd0d360  (minor = 4)
  19 /dev/fd0h1200 (minor = 8)
  20 /dev/fd0D360  (minor = 12)
  21 /dev/fd0H360  (minor = 12)
  22 /dev/fd0D720  (minor = 16)
  23 /dev/fd0H720  (minor = 16)
  24 /dev/fd0h360  (minor = 20)
  25 /dev/fd0h720  (minor = 24)
  26 /dev/fd0H1440 (minor = 28)
  27 .PP
  28 /dev/fd1d360  (minor = 5)
  29 /dev/fd1h1200 (minor = 9)
  30 /dev/fd1D360  (minor = 13)
  31 /dev/fd1H360  (minor = 13)
  32 /dev/fd1D720  (minor = 17)
  33 /dev/fd1H720  (minor = 17)
  34 /dev/fd1h360  (minor = 21)
  35 /dev/fd1h720  (minor = 25)
  36 /dev/fd1H1440 (minor = 29)
  37 .RE
  38 .fi
  39 .PP
  40 The generic floppy devices, /dev/fd0 and /dev/fd1, will fail to work with
  41 .B fdformat
  42 when a non-standard format is being used, or if the format has not been
  43 autodetected earlier.  In this case, use
  44 .BR setfdprm (8)
  45 to load the disk parameters.
  46 .SH OPTIONS
  47 .TP
  48 \fB\-f\fR, \fB\-\-from\fR \fIN\fR
  49 Start at the track \fIN\fR (default is 0).
  50 .TP
  51 \fB\-t\fR, \fB\-\-to\fR \fIN\fR
  52 Stop at the track \fIN\fR.
  53 .TP
  54 \fB\-r\fR, \fB\-\-repair\fR \fIN\fR
  55 Try to repair tracks failed during the verification (max \fIN\fR retries).
  56 .TP
  57 \fB\-n\fR, \fB\-\-no\-verify\fR
  58 Skip the verification that is normally performed after the formatting.
  59 .TP
  60 \fB\-V\fR, \fB\-\-version\fR
  61 Display version information and exit.
  62 .TP
  63 \fB\-h\fR, \fB\-\-help\fR
  64 Display help text and exit.
  65 .SH "SEE ALSO"
  66 .BR fd (4),
  67 .BR emkfs (8),
  68 .BR mkfs (8),
  69 .BR setfdprm (8)
  70 .SH AUTHOR
  71 Werner Almesberger (almesber@nessie.cs.id.ethz.ch)
  72 .SH AVAILABILITY
  73 The fdformat command is part of the util-linux package and is available from
  74 https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.