1 .TH superformat 1 "02jun00" fdutils-5.4
3 superformat - format floppies
16 This manpage has been automatically generated from fdutils's texinfo
17 documentation. However, this process is only approximative, and some
18 items, such as crossreferences, footnotes and indices are lost in this
19 translation process. Indeed, this items have no appropriate
20 representation in the manpage format. Moreover, only the items specific
21 to each command have been translated, and the general information about
22 fdutils has been dropped in the manpage version. Thus I strongly advise
23 you to use the original texinfo doc.
26 To generate a printable copy from the texinfo doc, run the following
32 ./configure; make dvi; dvips fdutils.dvi
41 To generate a html copy, run:
46 ./configure; make html
52 \&\fRA premade html can be found at:
53 \&\fR\&\f(CW\(ifhttp://www.tux.org/pub/knaff/fdutils\(is\fR
56 To generate an info copy (browsable using emacs' info mode), run:
61 ./configure; make info
69 The texinfo doc looks most pretty when printed or as html. Indeed, in
70 the info version certain examples are difficult to read due to the
71 quoting conventions used in info.
74 .iX "c formatting disks (non XDF)"
80 \&\fR\&\f(CWsuperformat [\fR\&\f(CW-D \fIdos-drive\fR\&\f(CW] [\fR\&\f(CW-v \fIverbosity-level\fR\&\f(CW] [\fR\&\f(CW-b \fIbegin-track\fR\&\f(CW]
81 [\fR\&\f(CW-e \fIend-track\fR\&\f(CW] [\fR\&\f(CW--superverify] [\fR\&\f(CW--dosverify]
82 [\fR\&\f(CW--noverify] [\fR\&\f(CW--verify_later] [\fR\&\f(CW--zero-based]
83 [\fR\&\f(CW-G \fIformat-gap\fR\&\f(CW] [\fR\&\f(CW-F \fIfinal-gap\fR\&\f(CW] [\fR\&\f(CW-i \fIinterleave\fR\&\f(CW] [\fR\&\f(CW-c \fIchunksize\fR\&\f(CW]
84 [\fR\&\f(CW-g \fIgap\fR\&\f(CW] [\fR\&\f(CW--absolute-skew \fIabsolute-skew\fR\&\f(CW] [\fR\&\f(CW--head-skew \fIhead-skew\fR\&\f(CW]
85 [\fR\&\f(CW--track-skew \fItrack-skew\fR\&\f(CW] [\fR\&\f(CW--biggest-last] \fIdrive\fR\&\f(CW [\fImedia-description\fR\&\f(CW]
93 \&\fR\&\f(CWsuperformat\fR is used to format disks with a capacity of up to
94 1992K HD or 3984K ED. See section Extended formats, for a detailed
95 description of these formats. See section Media description, for a detailed
96 description of the syntax for the media description. If no media
97 description is given, superformat formats a disk in the highest
98 available density for that drive, using standard parameters (i.e. no
99 extra capacity formats).
101 When the disk is formatted, \fR\&\f(CWsuperformat\fR automatically invokes
102 \&\fR\&\f(CWmformat\fR in order to put an MS-DOS filesystem on it. You may
103 ignore this filesystem, if you don't need it.
105 Supeformat allows to format 2m formats. Be aware, however, that these
106 \&\fR\&\f(CW2m\fR formats were specifically designed to hold an MS-DOS
107 filesystem, and that they take advantage of the fact that the MS-DOS
108 filesystem uses redundant sectors on the first track (the FAT, which is
109 represented twice). The second copy of the FAT is \fInot\fR represented
112 High capacity formats are sensitive to the exact rotation speed of the
113 drive and the resulting difference in raw capacity. That's why
114 \&\fR\&\f(CWsuperformat\fR performs a measurement of the disks raw capacity
115 before proceeding with the formatting. This measurement is rather time
116 consuming, and can be avoided by storing the relative deviation of the
117 drive capacity into the drive definition file file. See section Drive
118 descriptions, for more details on this file. The line to be inserted
119 into the drive definition file is printed by superformat after
120 performing its measurement. However, this line depends on the drive and
121 the controller. Do not copy it to other computers. Remove it before
122 installing another drive or upgrade your floppy controller. Swap the
123 drive numbers if you swap the drives in your computer.
126 Many options have a long and a short form.
130 \&\fR\&\f(CW--help\fR
133 \&\fR\&\f(CW-D\ \fIdrive\fR\&\f(CW\fR\
135 \&\fR\&\f(CW--dosdrive\ \fIdos-drive\fR\&\f(CW\fR
136 Selects DOS drive letter for \fR\&\f(CWmformat\fR (for example \fR\&\f(CWa:\fR or
137 \&\fR\&\f(CWb:\fR). The colon may be omitted. The default is derived from the
138 minor device number. If the drive letter cannot be guessed, and is not
139 given on the command line, \fR\&\f(CWmformat\fR is skipped.
141 \&\fR\&\f(CW-v\ \fIverbosity-level\fR\&\f(CW\fR\
143 \&\fR\&\f(CW--verbosity\ \fIverbosity-level\fR\&\f(CW\fR
144 Sets the verbosity level. 1 prints a dot for each formatted track. 2
145 prints a changing sign for each formatted track (- for formatting the
146 first head, = for formatting the second head, x for verifying the
147 first head, and + for verifying the second head). 3 prints a complete
148 line listing head and track. 6 and 9 print debugging information.
150 \&\fR\&\f(CW--superverify\fR\
151 Verifies the disk by first reading the track, than writing a pattern of
152 U's, and then reading it again. This is useful as some errors only show
153 up after the disk has once been written. However, this is also slower.
157 \&\fR\&\f(CW--dosverify\fR
158 Verifies the disk using the \fR\&\f(CWmbadblocks\fR program.
159 \&\fR\&\f(CWmbadblocks\fR marks the bad sectors as bad in the FAT. The
160 advantage of this is that disks which are only partially bad can still
161 be used for MS-DOS filesystems.
165 \&\fR\&\f(CW--verify_later\fR
166 Verifies the whole disk at the end of the formatting process instead
167 of at each track. Verifying the disk at each track has the advantage
168 of detecting errors early on.
172 \&\fR\&\f(CW--noverify\fR
173 Skips the verification altogether.
175 .SH Advanced\ Options
176 Usually, superformat uses sensible default values for these options,
177 which you normally don't need to override. They are intended for expert
178 users. Most of them should only be needed in cases where the hardware
179 or superformat itself has bugs.
182 \&\fR\&\f(CW-b\ \fIbegin-track\fR\&\f(CW\fR\
184 \&\fR\&\f(CW--begin_track\ \ \fIbegin-track\fR\&\f(CW\fR
185 Describes the track where to begin formatting. This is useful if the
186 previous formatting failed halfway through. The default is 0.
188 \&\fR\&\f(CW-e\ \fIend-track\fR\&\f(CW\fR\
190 \&\fR\&\f(CW--end_track\ \fIend-track\fR\&\f(CW\fR
191 Describes where to stop formatting. \fIend_track\fR is the last track to
192 be formatted plus one. This is mainly useful for testing purposes. By
193 default, this is the same as the total number of tracks. When the
194 formatting stops, the final skew is displayed (to be used as absolute
195 skew when you'll continue).
197 \&\fR\&\f(CW-S\ \fIsizecode\fR\&\f(CW\fR\
199 \&\fR\&\f(CW--sizecode\ \fIsizecode\fR\&\f(CW\fR
200 Set the sector size to be used. The sector size is 128 * (2 ^
201 \&\fIsizecode\fR). Sector sizes below 512 bytes are not supported, thus
202 sizecode must be at least 2. By default 512 is assumed, unless you ask
203 for more sectors than would fit with 512 bytes.
205 \&\fR\&\f(CW--stretch\ \fIstretch\fR\&\f(CW\fR\
206 Set the stretch factor. The stretch factor describes how many physical
207 tracks to skip to get to the next logical track (2 ^ \fIstretch\fR). On
208 double density 5 1/4 disks, the tracks are further apart from each
211 \&\fR\&\f(CW-G\ \fIfmt-gap\fR\&\f(CW\fR\
213 \&\fR\&\f(CW--format_gap\ \fIfmt-gap\fR\&\f(CW\fR
214 Set the formatting gap. The formatting gap tells how far the sectors
215 are away from each other. By default, this is chosen so as to evenly
216 distribute the sectors along the track.
218 \&\fR\&\f(CW-F\ \fIfinal-gap\fR\&\f(CW\fR\
220 \&\fR\&\f(CW--final_gap\ \fIfinal-gap\fR\&\f(CW\fR
221 Set the formatting gap to be used after the last sector.
223 \&\fR\&\f(CW-i\ \fIinterleave\fR\&\f(CW\fR\
225 \&\fR\&\f(CW--interleave\ \fIinterleave\fR\&\f(CW\fR
226 Set the sector interleave factor.
228 \&\fR\&\f(CW-c\ \fIchunksize\fR\&\f(CW\fR\
230 \&\fR\&\f(CW--chunksize\ \fIchunksize\fR\&\f(CW\fR
231 Set the size of the chunks. The chunks are small auxiliary sectors
232 used during formatting. They are used to handle heterogeneous sector
233 sizes (i.e. not all sectors have the same size) and negative
236 \&\fR\&\f(CW--biggest-last\fR\
237 For MSS formats, make sure that the biggest sector is last on the track.
238 This makes the format more reliable on drives which are out of spec.
240 \&\fR\&\f(CW--zero-based\fR\
241 Formats the disk with sector numbers starting at 0, rather than
242 1. Certain CP/M boxes or Music synthesizers use this format. Those disks
243 can currently not be read/written to by the standard Linux read/write
244 API; you have to use fdrawcmd to access them. As disk verifying is done
245 by this API, verifying is automatically switched off when formatting
248 .SH Sector\ skewing\ options
250 In order to maximize the user data transfer rate, the sectors are
251 arranged in such a way that sector 1 of the new track/head comes under
252 the head at the very moment when the drive is ready to read from that
253 track, after having read the previous track. Thus the first sector of
254 the second track is not necessarily near the first sector of the first
255 track. The skew value describes for each track how far sector number
256 1 is away from the index mark. This skew value changes for each head
257 and track. The amount of this change depends on how fast the disk
258 spins, and on how much time is needed to change the head or the track.
260 \&\fR\&\f(CW--absolute_skew\ \fIabsolute-skew\fR\&\f(CW\fR\
261 Set the absolute skew. (The skew value used for the first formatted
264 \&\fR\&\f(CW--head_skew\ \fIhead-skew\fR\&\f(CW\fR\
265 Set the head skew. (The skew added for passing from head 0 to head 1)
267 \&\fR\&\f(CW--track_skew\ \fItrack-skew\fR\&\f(CW\fR\
268 Set the track skew. (The skew added for seeking to the next track)
270 Example: (absolute skew=3, head skew=1, track skew=2)
276 track 0 head 0: 4,5,6,1,2,3 (skew=3)
277 track 0 head 1: 3,4,5,6,1,2 (skew=4)
279 track 1 head 0: 1,2,3,4,5,6 (skew=0)
280 track 1 head 1: 6,1,2,3,4,5 (skew=1)
282 track 2 head 0: 4,5,6,1,2,3 (skew=3)
283 track 2 head 1: 3,4,5,6,1,2 (skew=4)
292 In all the examples of this section, we assume that drive 0 is a 3 1/2
295 The following example shows how to format a 1440K disk in drive 0:
300 superformat /dev/fd0 hd
308 The following example shows how to format a 1200K disk in drive 1:
313 superformat /dev/fd1 hd
321 The following example shows how to format a 1440K disk in drive 1:
326 superformat /dev/fd1 hd sect=18
334 The following example shows how to format a 720K disk in drive 0:
339 superformat /dev/fd0 dd
347 The following example shows how to format a 1743K disk in drive 0 (83
348 cylinders times 21 sectors):
353 superformat /dev/fd0 sect=21 cyl=83
361 The following example shows how to format a 1992K disk in drive 0 (83
362 cylinders times 2 heads times 12 KB per track)
367 superformat /dev/fd0 tracksize=12KB cyl=83 mss
375 The following example shows how to format a 1840K disk in drive 0. It
376 will have 5 2048-byte sectors, one 1024-byte sector, and one 512-byte
382 superformat /dev/fd0 tracksize=23b mss 2m ssize=2KB
390 All these formats can be autodetected by mtools, using the floppy
391 driver's default settings.
395 \&\fR\&\f(CWFDC\ busy,\ sleeping\ for\ a\ second\fR\
396 When another program accesses a disk drive on the same controller as the
397 one being formatted, \fR\&\f(CWsuperformat\fR has to wait until the other
398 access is finished. If this happens, check whether any other program
399 accesses a drive (or whether a drive is mounted), kill that program (or
400 unmount the drive), and the format should proceed normally.
402 \&\fR\&\f(CWI/O\ errors\ during\ verification\fR\
403 Your drive may be too far out of tolerance, and you may thus need to
404 supply a margin parameter. Run \fR\&\f(CWfloppymeter\fR (see section floppymeter)
405 to find out an appropriate value for this parameter, and add the
406 suggested \fR\&\f(CWmargin\fR parameter to the command line
409 Opening up new window while \fR\&\f(CWsuperformat\fR is running produces
410 overrun errors. These errors are benign, as the failed operation is
411 automatically retried until it succeeds.