.\" Copyright (C) 1993, 1994, 1995, 2001 by Joerg Wunsch, Dresden .\" All rights reserved. .\" .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions .\" are met: .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. .\" .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR(S) ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS .\" OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED .\" WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE .\" DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR(S) BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, .\" INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES .\" (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR .\" SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, .\" STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING .\" IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE .\" POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. .\" .\" $FreeBSD$ .\" .Dd December 25, 2001 .Dt FDFORMAT 1 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm fdformat .Nd format floppy disks .Sh SYNOPSIS .Nm .Op Fl F Ar fill .Op Fl f Ar fmt .Op Fl s Ar fmtstr .Op Fl nqvy .Ar device .Sh DESCRIPTION The .Nm utility formats a floppy disk at .Ar device , where .Ar device may either be given as a full path name of a device node for a floppy disk drive (e.g.\& .Pa /dev/fd0 ) , or using an abbreviated name that will be looked up under .Pa /dev (e.g.\& .Dq Li fd0 ) . .Pp The options are as follows: .Bl -tag -width ".Fl s Ar fmtstr" .It Fl F Ar fill Use .Ar fill as the fill byte for newly formatted sectors. The .Ar fill argument must be a number in the range 0 through 255 using common C language notation. The default value is .Dq Li 0xf6 . .It Fl f Ar fmt Specify the density settings for a .Ar fmt kilobyte format, as described in .Xr fdcontrol 8 . .It Fl s Ar fmtstr Specify the density settings using explicit parameters, as described in .Xr fdcontrol 8 . .It Fl n Do not verify floppy after formatting. .It Fl q Suppress any normal output from the command, and do not ask the user for a confirmation whether to format the floppy disk at .Ar device . .It Fl v Do not format, verify only. .It Fl y Do not ask for confirmation whether to format the floppy disk but still report formatting status. .El .Pp For non-autoselecting subdevices, neither .Fl f Ar fmt nor .Fl s Ar fmtstr may be specified, since the preconfigured media density settings from the kernel driver will always be used. However, if .Ar device is a device with automatic media density selection (see .Xr fdc 4 ) , both methods can be used to override the density settings for the newly formatted medium (without permanently changing the density settings of .Ar device ) . .Pp 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 .Ql y must be given. .Pp Note that .Nm does only perform low-level formatting. In order to create a file system on the medium, see the commands .Xr newfs 8 for a .Tn UFS file system, or .Xr newfs_msdos 8 for an .Tn MS-DOS (FAT) file system. .Sh EXIT STATUS 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 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 .Ql F is printed when the track is being formatted, then a .Ql V while it is being verified, and if an error has been detected, it will finally change to .Ql E . Detailed status information (cylinder, head and sector number, and the exact cause of the error) will be printed for up to 10 errors after the entire formatting process has completed. .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr fdc 4 , .Xr fdcontrol 8 , .Xr newfs 8 , .Xr newfs_msdos 8 .Sh HISTORY The .Nm utility has been developed for .Bx 386 0.1 and upgraded to the new .Xr fdc 4 floppy disk driver. It later became part of the .Fx 1.1 system. Starting with .Fx 5.0 , it uses the unified density specifications as described in .Xr fdcontrol 8 . .Sh AUTHORS .An -nosplit The program has been contributed by .An J\(:org Wunsch , Dresden, with changes by .An Serge Vakulenko and .An Andrey A. Chernov , Moscow.