NAME
fdformat - low-level format a floppy disk
SYNOPSIS
fdformat [options] device
DESCRIPTION
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.
OPTIONS
-f, --from N
Start at the track N (default is 0).
-t, --to N
Stop at the track N.
-r, --repair N
Try to repair tracks failed during the verification (max N retries).
-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.
NOTES
This utility does not handle USB floppy disk drives. Use ufiformat(8) instead.
AUTHORS
Werner Almesberger (almesber [AT] nessie.ch)
SEE ALSO
fd(4), emkfs(8), mkfs(8), setfdprm(8), ufiformat(8)
AVAILABILITY
The fdformat command is part of the util-linux package and is available from https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.