mformat
mformat(1) General Commands Manual mformat(1)
Name
mformat - add an MSDOS filesystem to a low-level formatted floppy disk
Note of warning
This manpage has been automatically generated from mtools's texinfo
documentation, and may not be entirely accurate or complete. See the
end of this man page for details.
Description
The mformat command is used to add an MS-DOS file system to a low-level
formatted diskette. Its syntax is:
mformat [-t cylinders|-T tot_sectors] [-h heads] [-s sectors]
[-f size] [-1] [-4] [-8]
[-v volume_label]
[-F] [-S sizecode]
[-M software_sector_size]
[-N serial_number] [-a]
[-C] [-H hidden_sectors] [-I fsVersion]
[-r root_sectors] [-L fat_len]
[-B boot_sector] [-k]
[-m media_descriptor]
[-K backup_boot]
[-R nb_reserved_sectors]
[-c clusters_per_sector]
[-d fat_copies]
[-X] [-2 sectors_on_track_0] [-3]
[-0 rate_on_track_0] [-A rate_on_other_tracks]
drive:
Mformat adds a minimal MS-DOS file system (boot sector, FAT, and root
directory) to a diskette that has already been formatted by a Unix low-
level format.
The following options are supported: (The S, 2, 1 and M options may not
exist if this copy of mtools has been compiled without the USE_2M op-
tion)
The following options are the same as for MS-DOS's format command:
Options
v Specifies the volume label. A volume label identifies the disk
and can be a maximum of 11 characters. If you omit the -v
switch, mformat will assign no label to the disk.
f Specifies the size of the DOS file system to format. Only a cer-
tain number of predefined sizes are supported by this flag; for
others use the -h/-t/-s flags. The following sizes are sup-
ported:
160 160K, single-sided, 8 sectors per track, 40 cylinders
(for 5 1/4 DD)
180 160K, single-sided, 9 sectors per track, 40 cylinders
(for 5 1/4 DD)
320 320K, double-sided, 8 sectors per track, 40 cylinders
(for 5 1/4 DD)
360 360K, double-sided, 9 sectors per track, 40 cylinders
(for 5 1/4 DD)
720 720K, double-sided, 9 sectors per track, 80 cylinders
(for 3 1/2 DD)
1200 1200K, double-sided, 15 sectors per track, 80 cylinders
(for 5 1/4 HD)
1440 1440K, double-sided, 18 sectors per track, 80 cylinders
(for 3 1/2 HD)
2880 2880K, double-sided, 36 sectors per track, 80 cylinders
(for 3 1/2 ED)
t Specifies the number of tracks on the disk.
T Specifies the number of total sectors on the disk. Only one of
these 2 options may be specified (tracks or total sectors)
h The number of heads (sides).
s Specifies 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 0). If the 2m option is not given, num-
ber of physical sectors per track (which may be bigger than 512
bytes).
1 Formats a single side (equivalent to -h 1)
4 Formats a 360K double-sided disk (equivalent to -f 360). When
used together with -the 1 switch, this switch formats a 180K
disk
8 Formats a disk with 8 sectors per track.
MS-DOS format's q, u and b options are not supported, and s has a dif-
ferent meaning.
The following options are specific to mtools:
F Format the partition as FAT32.
S The size code. The size of the sector is 2 ^ (sizecode + 7).
X formats the disk as an XDF disk. See section XDF, for more de-
tails. The disk has first to be low-level formatted using the
xdfcopy utility included in the fdutils package. XDF disks are
used for instance for OS/2 install disks.
2 2m format. The parameter to this option describes the number of
sectors on track 0, head 0. This option is recommended for sec-
tors bigger than normal.
3 don't use a 2m format, even if the current geometry of the disk
is a 2m geometry.
0 Data transfer rate on track 0
A Data transfer rate on tracks other than 0
M software sector size. This parameter describes the sector size
in bytes used by the MS-DOS file system. By default it is the
physical sector size.
N Uses the requested serial number, instead of generating one au-
tomatically
a If this option is given, an Atari style serial number is gener-
ated. Ataris store their serial number in the OEM label.
C creates the disk image file to install the MS-DOS file system on
it. Obviously, this is useless on physical devices such as flop-
pies and hard disk partitions, but is interesting for image
files.
H number of hidden sectors. This parameter is useful for format-
ting hard disk partition, which are not aligned on track bound-
aries (i.e. first head of first track doesn't belong to the par-
tition, but contains a partition table). In that case the number
of hidden sectors is in general the number of sectors per cylin-
der. This is untested.
I Sets the fsVersion id when formatting a FAT32 drive. In order
to find this out, run minfo on an existing FAT32 drive, and mail
me about it, so I can include the correct value in future ver-
sions of mtools.
c Sets the size of a cluster (in sectors). If this cluster size
would generate a FAT that too big for its number of bits, mtools
automatically increases the cluster size, until the FAT is small
enough. If no cluster size is specified explicitly, mtools uses
a default value as described in section ``Number of sectors per
cluster'' below.
d Sets the number of FAT copies. Default is 2. This setting can
also be specified using the MTOOLS_NFATS environment variable.
r Sets the size of the root directory (in sectors). Only applica-
ble to 12 and 16 bit FATs. This setting can also be specified
using the MTOOLS_DIR_LEN environment variable.
L Sets the length of the FAT.
B Use the boot sector stored in the given file or device, instead
of using its own. Only the geometry fields are updated to match
the target disks parameters.
k Keep the existing boot sector as much as possible. Only the ge-
ometry fields and other similar file system data are updated to
match the target disks parameters.
K Sets the sector number where the backup of the boot sector
should be stored (only relevant on FAT32).
R Sets the number of reserved sectors for this filesystem. This
must be at least 1 for non-FAT32 disks, and at least 3 for FAT
disks (in order to accommodate the boot sector, the info sector
and the backup boot sector).
m Use a non-standard media descriptor byte for this disk. The me-
dia descriptor is stored at position 21 of the boot sector, and
as first byte in each FAT copy. Using this option may confuse
DOS or older mtools version, and may make the disk unreadable.
Only use if you know what you are doing.
To format a diskette at a density other than the default, you must sup-
ply (at least) those command line parameters that are different from
the default.
Mformat returns 0 on success or 1 on failure.
It doesn't record bad block information to the Fat, use mbadblocks for
that.
Number of sectors per cluster
If the user indicates no cluster size, mformat figures out a default
value for it.
For FAT32 it uses the following table to determine the number of sec-
tors per cluster, depending on the total number of sectors on the
filesystem.
more than 32*1024*1024*2: 64 sectors
between 16*1024*1024*2 and 32*1024*1024*2: 32 sectors
between 8*1024*1024*2 and 16*1024*1024*2: 16 sectors
between 260*1024*2 and 81024*1024*2: 1 sectors
This is derived from information on page 20 of Microsoft's fatgen103
document, which currently can be found at the following address:
https://staff.washington.edu/dittrich/misc/fatgen103.pdf
For FAT12 and FAT16, mformat uses an iterative approach, where it
starts with a set value, which it doubles until it is able to fill up
the disk using that cluster size and a number of cluster less than the
maximum allowed.
The starting value is 1 for disks with one head or less than 2000 sec-
tors, and 2 for disks with more than one head, and more than 2000 sec-
tors.
The number of sectors per cluster cannot go beyond 128.
See Also
Mtools' texinfo doc
Viewing the texi doc
This manpage has been automatically generated from mtools's texinfo
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items, such as crossreferences, footnotes and indices are lost in this
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mtools-4.0.24 22Mar20 mformat(1)
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