mformat - add an MSDOS filesystem to a low-level formatted floppy disk

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.

The CWmformat command is used to add an MS-DOS filesystem to a low-level formatted diskette. Its syntax is:

CWmformat [CW-t cylinders] [CW-h heads] [CW-n sectors]
  [CW-f size] [CW-1] [CW-4] [CW-8]
  [CW-v volume_label]
  [CW-F] [CW-S sizecode] [CW-X]
  [CW-2 sectors_on_track_0] [CW-3]
  [CW-0 rate_on_track_0] [CW-A rate_on_other_tracks]
  [CW-M software_sector_size]
  [CW-N serial_number] [CW-a]
  [CW-C] [CW-H hidden_sectors] [CW-I fsVersion]
  [CW-r root_sectors] [CW-L fat_len] 
  [CW-B boot_sector] [CW-k]
  drive:

CWMformat adds a minimal MS-DOS filesystem (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 option)

The following options are the same as for Dos's format command:

CWv

Specifies the volume label. A volume label identifies the disk and can be a maximum of 11 characters. If you omit the -v switch, mlabel will assign no label to the disk.

CWf

Specifies the size of the DOS filesystem to format. Only a certain number of predefined sizes are supported by this flag; for others use the -h/-t/-n flags. The following sizes are supported:

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)

CWt

Specifies the number of tracks on the disk.

CWh

The number of heads (sides).

CWn

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, number of physical sectors per track (which may be bigger than 512 bytes).

CW1

Formats a single side (equivalent to -h 1)

CW4

Formats a 360K double-sided disk (equivalent to -f 360). When used together with -the 1 switch, this switch formats a 180K disk

CW8

Formats a disk with 8 sectors per track.

MSDOS format's CWq, CWu and CWb options are not supported, and CWs has a different meaning.

The following options are specific to mtools:

CWF

Format the partition as FAT32.

CWS

The sizecode. The size of the sector is 2 ^ (sizecode + 7).

CWX

formats the disk as an XDF disk. See section XDF, for more details. 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.

CW2

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 normal.

CW3

don't use a 2m format, even if the current geometry of the disk is a 2m geometry.

CW0

Data transfer rate on track 0

CWA

Data transfer rate on tracks other than 0

CWM

software sector size. This parameter describes the sector size in bytes used by the MS-DOS filesystem. By default it is the physical sector size.

CWN

Uses the requested serial number, instead of generating one automatically

CWa

If this option is given, an Atari style serial number is generated. Ataris store their serial number in the OEM label.

CWC

creates the disk image file to install the MS-DOS filesystem on it. Obviously, this is useless on physical devices such as floppies and hard disk partitions, but is interesting for image files.

CWH

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 number of hidden sectors is in general the number of sectors per cylinder. This is untested.

CWI

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 versions of mtools.

CWc

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.

CWr

Sets the size of the root directory (in sectors). Only applicable to 12 and 16 bit FATs.

CWL

Sets the length of the FAT.

CWB

Use the bootsector stored in the given file or device, instead of using its own. Only the geometry fields are updated to match the target disks parameters.

CWk

Keep the existing boot sector as much as possible. Only the geometry fields and other similar filesystem data are updated to match the target disks parameters.

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.

CWMformat returns 0 on success or 1 on failure.

It doesn't record bad block information to the Fat, use CWmbadblocks for that.

Mtools' texinfo doc

This manpage has been automatically generated from mtools's texinfo documentation. However, this process is only approximative, and some items, such as crossreferences, footnotes and indices are lost in this translation process. Indeed, these items have no appropriate representation in the manpage format. Moreover, not all information has been translated into the manpage version. Thus I strongly advise you to use the original texinfo doc. See the end of this manpage for instructions how to view the texinfo doc.

*

To generate a printable copy from the texinfo doc, run the following commands:

    ./configure; make dvi; dvips mtools.dvi

*

To generate a html copy, run:

    ./configure; make html

A premade html can be found at: CWhttp://mtools.linux.lu and also at: CWhttp://www.tux.org/pub/knaff/mtools

*

To generate an info copy (browsable using emacs' info mode), run:

    ./configure; make info

The texinfo doc looks most pretty when printed or as html. Indeed, in the info version certain examples are difficult to read due to the quoting conventions used in info.