Low-level format a floppy disk
fdformat [options] device
fdformat does a low-level format on a floppy disk. device is usually one of the following (for floppy devices the major = 2, and the minor is shown for informational purposes only):
/dev/fd0d360 (minor = 4) /dev/fd0h1200 (minor = 8) /dev/fd0D360 (minor = 12) /dev/fd0H360 (minor = 12) /dev/fd0D720 (minor = 16) /dev/fd0H720 (minor = 16) /dev/fd0h360 (minor = 20) /dev/fd0h720 (minor = 24) /dev/fd0H1440 (minor = 28) /dev/fd1d360 (minor = 5) /dev/fd1h1200 (minor = 9) /dev/fd1D360 (minor = 13) /dev/fd1H360 (minor = 13) /dev/fd1D720 (minor = 17) /dev/fd1H720 (minor = 17) /dev/fd1h360 (minor = 21) /dev/fd1h720 (minor = 25) /dev/fd1H1440 (minor = 29)
The generic floppy devices, /dev/fd0 and /dev/fd1, will fail to work with fdformat when a non-standard format is being used, or if the format has not been autodetected earlier. In this case, use setfdprm(8) to load the disk parameters.
-n, --no-verify
Skip the verification that is normally performed after the formatting.
-V, --version
Display version information and exit.
-h, --help
Display help text and exit.
fd(4), setfdprm(8), mkfs(8), emkfs(8)
Werner Almesberger ([email protected])
The fdformat command is part of the util-linux package and is available from ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.