Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc
Date: 1998/04/05

http://www.google.com/groups?selm=6g7klu%24csc%241%40wagner.fe.msk.ru&rnum=10

: 2: How do I format a floppy disk?

Format a floppy-disk is actually two-step process 1. low-level format 2. Creating a filesystem

In DOS both are performed with format command. In Linux they are separate, becouse there are lot of ways to use floppy disk. You can dos-format it, you can create native linux file system or you can just write data to raw floppy using tar (which is most portable way to transfer data between unix system) or put kernel on it to make Linux boot disk

First step is performed via fdformat command. For example, if you have 1.44MB floppy on /dev/fd0 (dos A:) you can format it with command

fdformat /dev/fd0H1440

/dev/fd0H1440 is actual device in /dev, not an abbreviation.

There is number of such files for other formats of floppies. Typically files for 3-inch formats have capital H and for 5-inch ones have small h

Second step depends: for DOS format simpliest way is 'mformat a:' (assuming that your mtools are properly configured) for Linux native

mke2fs /dev/fd0

for using raw floppy - just write to /dev/fd0 using program of choice. For example

cat /vmlinuz >/dev/fd0 for making boot floppy

or

tar cf /dev/fd0 some files to archive

Victor Wagner