Ubuntu Manpage: superformat

Name

       superformat - format floppies

Note

       This  manpage  has  been  automatically  generated  from  fdutils's texinfo documentation.
       However, this process is only approximative, and some  items,  such  as  cross-references,
       footnotes  and  indices are lost in this translation process.  Indeed, these items have no
       appropriate representation in the manpage format.  Moreover, only the  items  specific  to
       each  command  have  been  translated,  and the general information about fdutils has been
       dropped in the manpage version.  Thus I strongly advise you to use  the  original  texinfo
       doc.

       *      To generate a printable copy from the texinfo doc, run the following commands:

                     ./configure; make dvi; dvips fdutils.dvi

       *      To generate a HTML copy,  run:

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              A pre-made HTML can be found at: `http://www.tux.org/pub/knaff/fdutils'

       *      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.

Description

          superformat [-D dos-drive] [-v verbosity-level] [-b begin-track]
          [-e end-track] [--superverify] [--dosverify]
          [--noverify] [--verify_later] [--first-sector-number n] [--zero-based]
          [-G format-gap] [-F final-gap] [-i interleave] [-c chunksize]
          [-g gap] [--absolute-skew absolute-skew] [--head-skew head-skew]
          [--track-skew track-skew] [--biggest-last] drive [media-description]

       superformat is used to format disks with a capacity of up to 1992K HD or  3984K  ED.   See
       section  Extended  formats, for a detailed description of these formats. See section Media
       description, for a detailed description of the syntax for the media  description.   If  no
       media  description  is  given, superformat formats a disk in the highest available density
       for that drive, using standard parameters (i.e. no extra capacity formats).

       When the disk is formatted, superformat automatically invokes mformat in order to  put  an
       MS-DOS filesystem on it. You may ignore this filesystem, if you don't need it.

       Superformat  allows  one  to  format 2m formats.  Be aware, however, that these 2m formats
       were specifically designed to hold an MS-DOS filesystem, and that they take  advantage  of
       the  fact  that  the MS-DOS filesystem uses redundant sectors on the first track (the FAT,
       which is represented twice). The second copy of the FAT is not represented on the disk.

       High capacity formats are sensitive to the exact rotation  speed  of  the  drive  and  the
       resulting  difference  in  raw capacity.  That's why superformat performs a measurement of
       the disks raw capacity before proceeding with the formatting.  This measurement is  rather
       time consuming, and can be avoided by storing the relative deviation of the drive capacity
       into the drive definition file file. See section Drive descriptions, for more  details  on
       this  file.  The  line  to  be  inserted  into  the  drive  definition  file is printed by
       superformat after performing its measurement.  However, this line depends on the drive and
       the  controller.   Do not copy it to other computers.  Remove it before installing another
       drive or upgrade your floppy controller.  Swap the drive numbers if you swap the drives in
       your computer.

Common Options

Many options have a long and a short form.

-h
--help Print the help.

-D drive
--dosdrive dos-drive
Selects DOS drive letter for mformat (for example a: or b:). The colon may be
omitted. The default is derived from the minor device number. If the drive letter
cannot be guessed, and is not given on the command line, mformat is skipped.

-v verbosity-level
--verbosity verbosity-level
Sets the verbosity level. 1 prints a dot for each formatted track. 2 prints a
changing sign for each formatted track (- for formatting the first head, = for
formatting the second head, x for verifying the first head, and + for verifying the
second head). 3 prints a complete line listing head and track. 6 and 9 print
debugging information.

--superverify
Verifies the disk by first reading the track, than writing a pattern of U's, and
then reading it again. This is useful as some errors only show up after the disk
has once been written. However, this is also slower.

-B
--dosverify
Verifies the disk using the mbadblocks program. mbadblocks marks the bad sectors
as bad in the FAT. The advantage of this is that disks which are only partially
bad can still be used for MS-DOS filesystems.

-V
--verify_later
Verifies the whole disk at the end of the formatting process instead of at each
track. Verifying the disk at each track has the advantage of detecting errors early
on.

-f
--noverify
Skips the verification altogether.

--print-drive-deviation
Does not format, but prints the drive deviation. If file /etc/driveprm exists and
provides a deviation for the drive, nothing is printed and the disk is not
formatted.

Advanced Options

Usually, superformat uses sensible default values for these options, which you normally
don't need to override. They are intended for expert users. Most of them should only be
needed in cases where the hardware or superformat itself has bugs.

-b begin-track
--begin_track begin-track
Describes the track where to begin formatting. This is useful if the previous
formatting failed halfway through. The default is 0.

-e end-track
--end_track end-track
Describes where to stop formatting. end_track is the last track to be formatted
plus one. This is mainly useful for testing purposes. By default, this is the same
as the total number of tracks. When the formatting stops, the final skew is
displayed (to be used as absolute skew when you'll continue).

-S sizecode
--sizecode sizecode
Set the sector size to be used. The sector size is 128 * (2 ^ sizecode). Sector
sizes below 512 bytes are not supported, thus sizecode must be at least 2. By
default 512 is assumed, unless you ask for more sectors than would fit with 512
bytes.

--stretch stretch
Set the stretch factor. The stretch factor describes how many physical tracks to
skip to get to the next logical track (2 ^ stretch). On double density 5 1/4
disks, the tracks are further apart from each other.

-G fmt-gap
--format_gap fmt-gap
Set the formatting gap. The formatting gap tells how far the sectors are away from
each other. By default, this is chosen so as to evenly distribute the sectors along
the track.

-F final-gap
--final_gap final-gap
Set the formatting gap to be used after the last sector.

-i interleave
--interleave interleave
Set the sector interleave factor.

-c chunksize
--chunksize chunksize
Set the size of the chunks. The chunks are small auxiliary sectors used during
formatting. They are used to handle heterogeneous sector sizes (i.e. not all
sectors have the same size) and negative formatting gaps.

--biggest-last
For MSS formats, make sure that the biggest sector is last on the track. This
makes the format more reliable on drives which are out of spec.

--first-sector-number n
Formats the disk with sector numbers starting at n, rather than 1. Certain CP/M
boxes or Music synthesizers use this format.

--zero-based
Shorthand for --first-sector-number 0

Sector skewing options

In order to maximize the user data transfer rate, the sectors are arranged in such a way
that sector 1 of the new track/head comes under the head at the very moment when the drive
is ready to read from that track, after having read the previous track. Thus the first
sector of the second track is not necessarily near the first sector of the first track.
The skew value describes for each track how far sector number 1 is away from the index
mark. This skew value changes for each head and track. The amount of this change depends
on how fast the disk spins, and on how much time is needed to change the head or the
track.

--absolute_skew absolute-skew

Set the absolute skew. This skew value is used for the first formatted track. It
is expressed in raw bytes.

--head_skew head-skew

Set the head skew. This is the skew added for passing from head 0 to head 1. It is
expressed in raw bytes.

--track_skew track-skew

Set the track skew. This is the skew added for seeking to the next track. It is
expressed in raw bytes.

Example: (absolute skew=3, head skew=1, track skew=2)

track 0 head 0: 4,5,6,1,2,3 (skew=3)
track 0 head 1: 3,4,5,6,1,2 (skew=4)

track 1 head 0: 1,2,3,4,5,6 (skew=0)
track 1 head 1: 6,1,2,3,4,5 (skew=1)

track 2 head 0: 4,5,6,1,2,3 (skew=3)
track 2 head 1: 3,4,5,6,1,2 (skew=4)

N.B. For simplicity's sake, this example expresses skews in units of sectors. In reality,
superformat expects the skews to be expressed in raw bytes.

Media description

       Please see the Media description section in the full fdutils documentation:
       - Texinfo documentation (info fdutils)
       - HTML documentation in /usr/share/doc/fdutils/Fdutils.html
       - or DVI documentation in /usr/share/doc/fdutils/Fdutils.dvi.gz

Examples

       In  all  the  examples  of this section, we assume that drive 0 is a 3 1/2 and drive 1 a 5
       1/4.

       The following example shows how to format a 1440K disk in drive 0:

          superformat /dev/fd0 hd

       The following example shows how to format a 1200K disk in drive 1:

          superformat /dev/fd1 hd

       The following example shows how to format a 1440K disk in drive 1:

          superformat /dev/fd1 hd sect=18

       The following example shows how to format a 720K disk in drive 0:

          superformat /dev/fd0 dd

       The following example shows how to format a 1743K disk in drive 0 (83 cylinders  times  21
       sectors):

          superformat /dev/fd0 sect=21 cyl=83

       The  following  example  shows how to format a 1992K disk in drive 0 (83 cylinders times 2
       heads times 12 KB per track)

          superformat /dev/fd0 tracksize=12KB cyl=83 mss

       The following example shows how to format a  1840K  disk  in  drive  0.  It  will  have  5
       2048-byte sectors, one 1024-byte sector, and one 512-byte sector per track:

          superformat /dev/fd0 tracksize=23b mss 2m ssize=2KB

       All  these  formats  can  be  autodetected  by  mtools,  using the floppy driver's default
       settings.

Troubleshooting

       FDC busy, sleeping for a second
              When another program accesses a disk drive on the same controller as the one  being
              formatted,  superformat  has  to  wait until the other access is finished.  If this
              happens, check whether any other program accesses a drive (or whether  a  drive  is
              mounted),  kill  that program (or unmount the drive), and the format should proceed
              normally.

       I/O errors during verification
              Your drive may be too far out of tolerance, and you  may  thus  need  to  supply  a
              margin  parameter.   Run  floppymeter  (see  section   floppymeter)  to find out an
              appropriate value for this parameter, and add the suggested margin parameter to the
              command line

Bugs

       Opening  up  new window while superformat is running produces overrun errors. These errors
       are benign, as the failed operation is automatically retried until it succeeds.