FDFORMAT(1) BSD Reference Manual FDFORMAT(1)NAMEfdformat - format floppy disk
SYNOPSISfdformat [-lv] device [disk_type]
DESCRIPTION
The fdformat utility formats floppy disks.
The following options are available:
-l Place a disk label on the disk after formatting.
-v Provide verbose output, including printing the track and head num-
ber during formatting.
The device argument is the name of the floppy disk's device special file
(normally in the /dev directory). If device does not begin with a slash,
the prefix /dev/ is prepended to the name. If the resulting file does
not exist, an ``a'' is appended to the name.
The disk_type argument is the name of a disk description entry in
/etc/disktab. The conventional names are ``floppy'' for 1.44MB HD 3.5
disks, and ``floppy15'' for 1.2MB HD 5.25 disks. If not specified,
disk_type defaults to ``floppy''.
Floppies which are to be used as BSD/OS filesystems need to be formatted
with fdformat, labeled with disksetup(8) (or by specifying the -l option)
and then a filesystem should be created on the floppy using newfs(8).
The fdformat utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.
SEE ALSOfloppy(4), disktab(5), disksetup(8), newfs(8)HISTORY
The fdformat command first appeared in BSDI.
4th Berkeley Distribution Feb 9, 1992 1