1.\" Copyright (C) 1993, 1994, 1995, 2001 by Joerg Wunsch, Dresden 2.\" All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 5.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 6.\" are met: 7.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 8.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 9.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 10.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 11.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 12.\" 13.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR(S) ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS 14.\" OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED 15.\" WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE 16.\" DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR(S) BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, 17.\" INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES 18.\" (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR 19.\" SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 20.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, 21.\" STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING 22.\" IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE 23.\" POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. 24.\" 25.\" $FreeBSD$ 26.\" 27.Dd May 23, 2020 28.Dt FDFORMAT 8 29.Os 30.Sh NAME 31.Nm fdformat 32.Nd format floppy disks 33.Sh SYNOPSIS 34.Nm 35.Op Fl F Ar fill 36.Op Fl f Ar fmt 37.Op Fl s Ar fmtstr 38.Op Fl nqvy 39.Ar device 40.Sh DESCRIPTION 41The 42.Nm 43utility formats a floppy disk at 44.Ar device , 45where 46.Ar device 47may either be given as a full path 48name of a device node for a floppy disk drive 49(e.g.,\& 50.Pa /dev/fd0 ) , 51or using an abbreviated name that will be looked up 52under 53.Pa /dev 54(e.g.,\& 55.Dq Li fd0 ) . 56.Pp 57The options are as follows: 58.Bl -tag -width ".Fl s Ar fmtstr" 59.It Fl F Ar fill 60Use 61.Ar fill 62as the fill byte for newly formatted sectors. 63The 64.Ar fill 65argument 66must be a number in the range 0 through 255 using common C 67language notation. 68The default value is 69.Dq Li 0xf6 . 70.It Fl f Ar fmt 71Specify the density settings for a 72.Ar fmt 73kilobyte format, as described in 74.Xr fdcontrol 8 . 75.It Fl s Ar fmtstr 76Specify the density settings using explicit parameters, as 77described in 78.Xr fdcontrol 8 . 79.It Fl n 80Do not verify floppy after formatting. 81.It Fl q 82Suppress any normal output from the command, and do not ask the 83user for a confirmation whether to format the floppy disk at 84.Ar device . 85.It Fl v 86Do not format, verify only. 87.It Fl y 88Do not ask for confirmation whether to format the floppy disk but 89still report formatting status. 90.El 91.Pp 92For non-autoselecting subdevices, neither 93.Fl f Ar fmt 94nor 95.Fl s Ar fmtstr 96may be specified, since the preconfigured media density settings 97from the kernel driver will always be used. 98However, if 99.Ar device 100is a device with automatic media density selection (see 101.Xr fdc 4 ) , 102both methods can be used to override the density settings for the 103newly formatted medium (without permanently changing the density 104settings of 105.Ar device ) . 106.Pp 107If the 108.Fl q 109flag has not been specified, the user is asked for a confirmation 110of the intended formatting process. 111In order to continue, an answer 112of 113.Ql y 114must be given. 115.Pp 116Note that 117.Nm 118does only perform low-level formatting. 119In order to create 120a file system on the medium, see the commands 121.Xr newfs 8 122for a 123.Tn UFS 124file system, or 125.Xr newfs_msdos 8 126for an 127.Tn MS-DOS 128(FAT) 129file system. 130.Sh EXIT STATUS 131An exit status of 0 is returned upon successful operation. 132Exit status 1331 is returned on any errors during floppy formatting, and an exit status 134of 2 reflects invalid arguments given to the program (along with an 135appropriate information written to diagnostic output). 136.Sh EXAMPLES 137To format a new double-sided, high-density (HD) 1.44 MB disk 138inserted in the first floppy disk drive, issue: 139.Pp 140.Dl "/usr/sbin/fdformat -f 1440 /dev/fd0" 141.Pp 142After low-level formatting the disk with 143.Nm , 144create a disk label so that the system can determine the size and 145geometry of the disk. 146The supported geometry values are listed in 147.Pa /etc/disktab , 148and we will use 149.Va fd1440 150for this example. 151To write the disk label, use 152.Xr bsdlabel 8 : 153.Pp 154.Dl "/sbin/bsdlabel -B -w /dev/fd0 fd1440" 155.Pp 156The floppy is now ready to be high-level formatted with a file system. 157To format the floppy disk with FAT, issue: 158.Pp 159.Dl "/sbin/newfs_msdos /dev/fd0" 160.Sh DIAGNOSTICS 161Unless 162.Fl q 163has been specified, a single letter is printed to standard output 164to inform the user about the progress of work. 165First, an 166.Ql F 167is printed when the track is being formatted, then a 168.Ql V 169while it is being verified, and if an error has been detected, it 170will finally change to 171.Ql E . 172Detailed status information (cylinder, head and sector number, and the 173exact cause of the error) will be printed for up to 10 errors after the 174entire formatting process has completed. 175.Sh SEE ALSO 176.Xr fdc 4 , 177.Xr bsdlabel 8 , 178.Xr fdcontrol 8 , 179.Xr newfs 8 , 180.Xr newfs_msdos 8 181.Sh HISTORY 182The 183.Nm 184utility 185has been developed for 186.Bx 386 0.1 187and upgraded to the new 188.Xr fdc 4 189floppy disk driver. 190It later became part of the 191.Fx 1.1 192system. 193Starting with 194.Fx 5.0 , 195it uses the unified density specifications as described in 196.Xr fdcontrol 8 . 197.Sh AUTHORS 198.An -nosplit 199The program has been contributed by 200.An J\(:org Wunsch , 201Dresden, with changes by 202.An Serge Vakulenko 203and 204.An Andrey A. Chernov , 205Moscow. 206