NAME

       hformat - create a new HFS filesystem and make it current

SYNOPSIS

       hformat [-f] [-l label] destination-path [partition-no]

DESCRIPTION

       hformat is used to write a new HFS filesystem to a volume. A UNIX pathname to the volume's
       destination must be specified. The destination may be either a block device or  a  regular
       file, but it must already exist and be writable.

       An  optional  label  can  be  specified  to name the volume. The name must be between 1-27
       characters and cannot contain a colon (:). By default, the volume will be named Untitled.

       If the destination medium is partitioned, one partition must be selected  to  receive  the
       filesystem.  If  there  is  only  one  HFS partition on the medium, it will be selected by
       default. Otherwise, the desired partition number must be specified (as the ordinal nth HFS
       partition)  on  the  command-line.  The  size  of the partition determines the size of the
       resulting volume.

       Partition number 0 can be specified to format the entire medium  as  a  single  filesystem
       without  a  partition  map,  erasing  any  existing partition information. Since this will
       destroy all the partitions, the -f option must be specified to force this operation if the
       medium currently contains a partition map.

       If the medium is not partitioned (or if partition 0 is specified), the size or capacity of
       the medium determines the size of the resulting volume.

       The new volume will be empty and will become "current" so subsequent commands  will  refer
       to it. The current working directory for the volume is set to the root of the volume.

EXAMPLES

       % hformat /dev/fd0
              If  a  floppy disk is available as /dev/fd0, this formats the disk as an HFS volume
              named Untitled.  (N.B. The floppy must already have received a low-level format  by
              other means.)

       % dd if=/dev/zero of=disk.hfs bs=1k count=800
       % hformat -l "Test Disk" disk.hfs
              This  sequence creates an 800K HFS volume image in the file disk.hfs in the current
              directory, and names it Test Disk.

       % hformat -l "Loma Prieta" /dev/sd2 1
              If a SCSI disk is available as /dev/sd2, this initializes the first  HFS  partition
              on  the disk (which must already exist) with a new filesystem, naming the resulting
              volume Loma Prieta.

       % hformat -f /dev/sd2 0
              This causes the medium accessible as /dev/sd2 to be reformatted  as  a  single  HFS
              volume,  ignoring and erasing any existing partition information on the medium. The
              -f option must be specified if the medium is currently partitioned;  otherwise  the
              command will fail.

NOTES

       This  command  does  not  create  or  alter partition maps, although it can erase them (as
       described above). Any partition number specified on the command line must already exist.

       The smallest volume size which can be formatted with hformat is 800K.

SEE ALSO

       hfsutils(1), hmount(1)

FILES

       $HOME/.hcwd

AUTHOR

       Robert Leslie <rob@mars.org>