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 filesystem to a low-level
       formatted diskette. Its syntax is:

       mformat [-t cylinders] [-h heads] [-s 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]
	 [-m media_descriptor]
	 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 compiled 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 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.

       f      Specifies the size of the DOS filesystem 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.

       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, 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.

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

       X      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.

       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 filesystem. By default it is the
	      physical sector size.

       N      Uses the requested serial	 number,  instead  of  generating  one
	      automatically

       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 filesystem  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.

       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	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.

       k      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.

       m      Use  a  non-standard  media  descriptor  byte for this disk. The
	      media descriptor is stored at position 21 of  the	 boot  sector,
	      and  as  first byte in each FAT copy. Using this option may con-
	      fuse DOS or older mtools version, and may make the disk  unread-
	      able. 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.

See Also
       Mtools' texinfo doc

Viewing the texi 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 represen-
       tation 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 fol-
	      lowing commands:

		     ./configure; make dvi; dvips mtools.dvi



       *      To generate a html copy,	run:

		     ./configure; make html

	      A	 premade  html	can  be	 found	at   `http://www.gnu.org/soft-
	      ware/mtools/manual/mtools.html'

       *      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.

mtools-4.0.12			    03Nov09			    mformat(1)