1mformat(1) General Commands Manual mformat(1)
2
6 mformat - add an MSDOS filesystem to a low-level formatted floppy disk
7
11 This manpage has been automatically generated from mtools's texinfo
12 documentation, and may not be entirely accurate or complete. See the
13 end of this man page for details.
14
16 The mformat command is used to add an MS-DOS file system to a low-level
17 formatted diskette. Its syntax is:
18 mformat [-t cylinders|-T tot_sectors] [-h heads] [-s sectors]
20 [-f size] [-1] [-4] [-8]
21 [-v volume_label]
22 [-F] [-S sizecode]
23 [-M software_sector_size]
24 [-N serial_number] [-a]
25 [-C] [-H hidden_sectors] [-I fsVersion]
26 [-r root_sectors] [-L fat_len]
27 [-B boot_sector] [-k]
28 [-m media_descriptor]
29 [-K backup_boot]
30 [-R nb_reserved_sectors]
31 [-c clusters_per_sector]
32 [-d fat_copies]
33 [-X] [-2 sectors_on_track_0] [-3]
34 [-0 rate_on_track_0] [-A rate_on_other_tracks]
35 drive:
36 Mformat adds a minimal MS-DOS file system (boot sector, FAT, and root
39 directory) to a diskette that has already been formatted by a Unix low-
40 level format.
41 The following options are supported: (The S, 2, 1 and M options may not
43 exist if this copy of mtools has been compiled without the USE_2M op‐
44 tion)
45 The following options are the same as for MS-DOS's format command:
47
49 v Specifies the volume label. A volume label identifies the disk
50 and can be a maximum of 11 characters. If you omit the -v
51 switch, mformat will assign no label to the disk.
52 f Specifies the size of the DOS file system to format. Only a cer‐
54 tain number of predefined sizes are supported by this flag; for
55 others use the -h/-t/-s flags. The following sizes are sup‐
56 ported:
57 160 160K, single-sided, 8 sectors per track, 40 cylinders
59 (for 5 1/4 DD)
60 180 160K, single-sided, 9 sectors per track, 40 cylinders
62 (for 5 1/4 DD)
63 320 320K, double-sided, 8 sectors per track, 40 cylinders
65 (for 5 1/4 DD)
66 360 360K, double-sided, 9 sectors per track, 40 cylinders
68 (for 5 1/4 DD)
69 720 720K, double-sided, 9 sectors per track, 80 cylinders
71 (for 3 1/2 DD)
72 1200 1200K, double-sided, 15 sectors per track, 80 cylinders
74 (for 5 1/4 HD)
75 1440 1440K, double-sided, 18 sectors per track, 80 cylinders
77 (for 3 1/2 HD)
78 2880 2880K, double-sided, 36 sectors per track, 80 cylinders
80 (for 3 1/2 ED)
81 t Specifies the number of tracks on the disk.
83 T Specifies the number of total sectors on the disk. Only one of
85 these 2 options may be specified (tracks or total sectors)
86 h The number of heads (sides).
88 s Specifies the number of sectors per track. If the 2m option is
90 given, number of 512-byte sector equivalents on generic tracks
91 (i.e. not head 0 track 0). If the 2m option is not given, num‐
92 ber of physical sectors per track (which may be bigger than 512
93 bytes).
94 1 Formats a single side (equivalent to -h 1)
96 4 Formats a 360K double-sided disk (equivalent to -f 360). When
98 used together with -the 1 switch, this switch formats a 180K
99 disk
100 8 Formats a disk with 8 sectors per track.
102 MS-DOS format's q, u and b options are not supported, and s has a dif‐
104 ferent meaning.
105 The following options are specific to mtools:
107 F Format the partition as FAT32.
109 S The size code. The size of the sector is 2 ^ (sizecode + 7).
111 X formats the disk as an XDF disk. See section XDF, for more de‐
113 tails. The disk has first to be low-level formatted using the
114 xdfcopy utility included in the fdutils package. XDF disks are
115 used for instance for OS/2 install disks.
116 2 2m format. The parameter to this option describes the number of
118 sectors on track 0, head 0. This option is recommended for sec‐
119 tors bigger than normal.
120 3 don't use a 2m format, even if the current geometry of the disk
122 is a 2m geometry.
123 0 Data transfer rate on track 0
125 A Data transfer rate on tracks other than 0
127 M software sector size. This parameter describes the sector size
129 in bytes used by the MS-DOS file system. By default it is the
130 physical sector size.
131 N Uses the requested serial number, instead of generating one au‐
133 tomatically
134 a If this option is given, an Atari style serial number is gener‐
136 ated. Ataris store their serial number in the OEM label.
137 C creates the disk image file to install the MS-DOS file system on
139 it. Obviously, this is useless on physical devices such as flop‐
140 pies and hard disk partitions, but is interesting for image
141 files.
142 H number of hidden sectors. This parameter is useful for format‐
144 ting hard disk partition, which are not aligned on track bound‐
145 aries (i.e. first head of first track doesn't belong to the par‐
146 tition, but contains a partition table). In that case the number
147 of hidden sectors is in general the number of sectors per cylin‐
148 der. This is untested.
149 I Sets the fsVersion id when formatting a FAT32 drive. In order
151 to find this out, run minfo on an existing FAT32 drive, and mail
152 me about it, so I can include the correct value in future ver‐
153 sions of mtools.
154 c Sets the size of a cluster (in sectors). If this cluster size
156 would generate a FAT that too big for its number of bits, mtools
157 automatically increases the cluster size, until the FAT is small
158 enough. If no cluster size is specified explicitly, mtools uses
159 a default value as described in section ``Number of sectors per
160 cluster'' below.
161 d Sets the number of FAT copies. Default is 2. This setting can
163 also be specified using the MTOOLS_NFATS environment variable.
164 r Sets the size of the root directory (in sectors). Only applica‐
166 ble to 12 and 16 bit FATs. This setting can also be specified
167 using the MTOOLS_DIR_LEN environment variable.
168 L Sets the length of the FAT.
170 B Use the boot sector stored in the given file or device, instead
172 of using its own. Only the geometry fields are updated to match
173 the target disks parameters.
174 k Keep the existing boot sector as much as possible. Only the ge‐
176 ometry fields and other similar file system data are updated to
177 match the target disks parameters.
178 K Sets the sector number where the backup of the boot sector
180 should be stored (only relevant on FAT32).
181 R Sets the number of reserved sectors for this filesystem. This
183 must be at least 1 for non-FAT32 disks, and at least 3 for FAT
184 disks (in order to accommodate the boot sector, the info sector
185 and the backup boot sector).
186 m Use a non-standard media descriptor byte for this disk. The me‐
188 dia descriptor is stored at position 21 of the boot sector, and
189 as first byte in each FAT copy. Using this option may confuse
190 DOS or older mtools version, and may make the disk unreadable.
191 Only use if you know what you are doing.
192 b Use a non-standard bios disk number for this disk. By default,
194 bios disk number is inferred from media descriptor: 0x80 for me‐
195 dia descriptor 0xf8, or 0x00 otherwise.
196 To format a diskette at a density other than the default, you must sup‐
198 ply (at least) those command line parameters that are different from
199 the default.
200 Mformat returns 0 on success or 1 on failure.
202 It doesn't record bad block information to the Fat, use mbadblocks for
204 that.
205
207 If the user indicates no cluster size, mformat figures out a default
208 value for it.
209 For FAT32 it uses the following table to determine the number of sec‐
211 tors per cluster, depending on the total number of sectors on the
212 filesystem.
213 more than 32*1024*1024*2: 64 sectors
215 between 16*1024*1024*2 and 32*1024*1024*2: 32 sectors
216 between 8*1024*1024*2 and 16*1024*1024*2: 16 sectors
217 between 260*1024*2 and 81024*1024*2: 1 sectors
218 This is derived from information on page 20 of Microsoft's fatgen103
220 document, which currently can be found at the following address:
221 https://staff.washington.edu/dittrich/misc/fatgen103.pdf
223 For FAT12 and FAT16, mformat uses an iterative approach, where it
225 starts with a set value, which it doubles until it is able to fill up
226 the disk using that cluster size and a number of cluster less than the
227 maximum allowed.
228 The starting value is 1 for disks with one head or less than 2000 sec‐
230 tors, and 2 for disks with more than one head, and more than 2000 sec‐
231 tors.
232 The number of sectors per cluster cannot go beyond 128.
234
236 Mtools' texinfo doc
237
239 This manpage has been automatically generated from mtools's texinfo
240 documentation. However, this process is only approximative, and some
241 items, such as crossreferences, footnotes and indices are lost in this
242 translation process. Indeed, these items have no appropriate represen‐
243 tation in the manpage format. Moreover, not all information has been
244 translated into the manpage version. Thus I strongly advise you to use
245 the original texinfo doc. See the end of this manpage for instructions
246 how to view the texinfo doc.
247 * To generate a printable copy from the texinfo doc, run the fol‐
249 lowing commands:
250 ./configure; make dvi; dvips mtools.dvi
252 * To generate a html copy, run:
256 ./configure; make html
258 A premade html can be found at `http://www.gnu.org/software/mtools/man‐
260 ual/mtools.html'
261 * To generate an info copy (browsable using emacs' info mode),
263 run:
264 ./configure; make info
266 The texinfo doc looks most pretty when printed or as html. Indeed, in
270 the info version certain examples are difficult to read due to the
271 quoting conventions used in info.
272mtools-4.0.43 21Mar23 mformat(1)