mformat
Hurricane Electric Internet Services
NAME
mformat - add an MSDOS filesystem to a low-level formatted
diskette.
SYNOPSIS
mformat [ -t tracks ] [ -h heads ] [ -s sectors ] [ -l
volume label ] [ -S sizecode ] [ -2 sectors on track 0 ] [
-M software sector size ] [ -a ] [ -X ] [ -C ] [ -H hidden
sectors ] drive:
DESCRIPTION
Mformat adds a minimal MSDOS filesystem (boot sector, FAT,
and root directory) to a diskette that has already been
formatted by a Unix low-level format.
The follow options are supported: (The S, 2, 1 and M
options may not exist if this copy of mtools has been com-
piled without the USE_2M option)
t The number of tracks (not cylinders).
h The number of heads (sides).
s 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). If the 2m
option is not given, number of physical sectors per
track (which may be bigger than 512 bytes).
l An optional volume label.
S The sizecode. The size of the sector is 2 ^ (size-
code + 7).
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 nor-
mal.
1 don't use a 2m format, even if the current geometry
of the disk is a 2m geometry.
M software sector size. This parameter describes the
sector size in bytes used by the MSDOS filesystem.
By default it is the physical sector size.
a If this option is given, an Atari style serial num-
ber is generated. Ataris store their serial number
in the OEM label.
X formats the disk as an Xdf disk. Xdf disk are used
by OS/2. This format can hold 1756k, and is faster
than the equivalent 2m formats. The disk has first
to be low-level formatted using the xdfcopy utility
included in the fdutils package.
C creates the disk image file to install the MSDOS
filesystem on it. Obviously, this is useless on
physical devices such as floppies and hard disk
partitions.
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 num-
ber of hidden sectors is in general the number of
sectors per cylinder. This is untested.
n serial number.
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.
SEE ALSO
mlabel(1)
BUGS
Requires a low-level format utility from Unix.
Doesn't detect (or record) bad block information.
Hurricane Electric Internet Services
Copyright (C) 1998
Hurricane Electric.
All Rights Reserved.