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


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       accurate or complete.  See the end of this  man  page  for
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Description

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

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

       Mformat 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 com­
       piled without the USE_2M option)

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


Options

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

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

                     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.

       h      The number of heads (sides).

       n      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).

       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.

       MSDOS format's q, u and b options are not supported, and s
       has a different meaning.

       The following options are specific to mtools:

       F      Format the partition as FAT32.

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

              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.

       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.

       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 filesystem.
              By default it is the physical sector size.

       N      Uses the requested serial number, instead of gener­
              ating one automatically

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

       C      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.

       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.

       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 versions 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.

       r      Sets  the  size of the root directory (in sectors).


       L      Sets the length of the FAT.

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

       k      Keep  the existing boot sector as much as possible.
              Only the geometry fields and other similar filesys­
              tem  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.

       Mformat returns 0 on success or 1 on failure.

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


See Also

       Mtools' texinfo doc


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