floppy — format floppy disks
floppy
[[--createrc >/etc/floppy] | [--format /dev/fdo
] | [--format A:
]]
floppygtk
The floppy utility does low-level formatting of floppy disks. floppy uses a simple interface for formatting disks in floppy controller drives and in ATAPI IDE floppy drives, such as LS-120 "Superdisk" drives. ATAPI IDE support requires a patch to the Linux kernel. Without a patched kernel floppy can only format disks in floppy controller drives.
Use caution in formatting anything other than standard 3.5" 1.4MB floppy disks in ATAPI IDE floppy drives. Most LS-120 drives, for example, accept a request to format 120MB high density disks, but most 120MB disks are not designed to be formatted. Low-level formatting will ruin them permanently.
floppygtk is a GTK interface to the floppy utility. If started from an X terminal window, floppy automatically runs floppygtk.
--probe, -p
Probe for available floppy drives. floppy creates and displays a list of all detected floppy drives.
--createrc, -r
Print a configuration file. floppy prints on standard output
the results of the --probe
option in a configuration file format.
This configuration file should be saved as
/etc/floppy
.
--showrc
List floppy drives configured in
/etc/floppy
.
--capacity, -c
Show the available format capacities of the floppy drive. Most floppy
drives can format disks of different capacities. --capacity
lists
each available format capacity as
CxBxS
where: C - number of
cylinders, B - blocks per cylinder, S - block size, in bytes.
--capacity
also calculates how much that is, in kilobytes
ormegabytes.
--format, -f
Format the disk in the floppy drive.
--size=CxBxS, -s=CxBxS
Specify the size of the disk to format. --format
uses the first
format capacity reported by --capacity
if the
--size
option is not specified.
--ext2
, or --ext3
Create an ext2 or an ext3 (Linux) filesystem on the formatted floppy. This option requires the e2fsprogs package to be installed. This option runs mke2fs after formatting the floppy disk.
--fat
Create a FAT (DOS) filesystem on the formatted floppy. This option requires the dosfstools package to be installed. This option runs mkdosfs after formatting the floppy disk.
--noprompt, -n
Suppress verbose output produced by --capacity
and
--format
. Use a raw output format that can be used by
a front-end wrapper that runs floppy on the back-end.
--eject
Eject the floppy from the drive (IDE floppy drives with an electronic eject mechanism).
floppy --probe
This command probes the hardware and reports on the available floppy
drives. A typical output from --probe
would be:
floppy 0.17 Copyright 2001-2003, Double Precision, Inc. floppy /dev/fd0: 3.5" HD idefloppy /dev/hda: LS-120 VER5 00 UHD Floppy Revision: F523M5A9 Serial number: 9803M9A03464
Here, floppy detected a high density floppy drive on
/dev/fd0
, and an IDE floppy drive on
/dev/hda
.
A configuration file, /etc/floppy
must be created before
floppy can format floppy disks. This configuration file
can be created
automatically by the --createrc
option. Each line
in the configuration
file contains the following information:
type<TAB>label<TAB>device
.
"<TAB>" is a single
ASCII TAB character. "device
" is the device entry
for the floppy drive.
floppy requires that all requests for formatting floppies
must
use only the devices that appear in this configuration file.
"label
"
is an alias for this device.
floppy accepts "label:
"
instead of
the actual device entry, for example: "floppy --format A:".
"type
" is either
"floppy
" or "idefloppy
".
The --createrc
option sets
"A
" as the label for the first floppy
drive, and "B
" for the second floppy drive.
If --createrc
finds more
than two floppy drives, --createrc
will use
"FA
",
"FB
", "FC
", and so
on.
Most floppy drives can format disks of different capacities. The
--capacity
option shows possible format capacities on the
specified
floppy device. A typical IDE floppy drive may report the following
capacities:
$ floppy --capacity B: Formattable capacities for /dev/hda: 80x36x512 (1.40 Mb) 80x30x512 (1.17 Mb) 56x22x1024 (1.20 Mb)
A standard floppy drive attached to the floppy controller may report the following capacities:
$ floppy --capacity A: Formattable capacities for /dev/fd0: 80x36x512 (/dev/fd0H1440, 1.40 Mb) 80x18x512 (/dev/fd0D720, 720 Kb) 80x48x512 (/dev/fd0u1920, 1.87 Mb) 80x28x512 (/dev/fd0u1120, 1.09 Mb) 80x40x512 (/dev/fd0u1660, 1.56 Mb) 80x26x512 (/dev/fd0u1040, 1.01 Mb) 80x46x512 (/dev/fd0u1840, 1.79 Mb) 80x42x512 (/dev/fd0u1680, 1.64 Mb)
The --capacity
option reports each available format
capacity as "cylinders x blocks-per-cylinder x block size".
IDE floppy drive only return a total block count,
and --capacity
tries some common
blocks-per-cylinder geometries, until it finds one that fits.
Format capacities
of standard floppy drives are obtained from the floppy device driver.
IDE floppy drives may report format capacities only after a disk is inserted. Without a floppy disk, IDE floppy drives may not report any available format capacities, or they may report the primary format capacity that they are designed to format. For example, most LS-120 drives default to reporting 120mb when there is no disk inserted in the drive:
$ floppy --capacity A: Formattable capacities for /dev/hda: 6848x36x512 (120.37 Mb)
Do not attempt to format 120Mb media in LS-120 drives. Most LS-120 disks are not user-formattable. They are factory-formatted, and attempts to format them in LS-120 drives will render them unusable (to be sure, check the label on the floppy itself). The floppy utility does not prevent one from trying to use any format capacity the IDE floppy drive claims to support. If the drive claims it can format a disk of the given capacity, floppy will oblige.
The --format
option does a low-level format on the
floppy.
$ ./floppy --format --size=80x36x512 A: Formatting 1.40 Mb... 0%
--size
must specify a geometry returned by
--capacity
. If
--size
is absent, the first geometry is selected.
For floppy controller drives, the status counter will go from 0% to 100%.
With most IDE floppy drives the counter will remain at 0% until the format
finishes. Some IDE floppy drives are capable of reporting format progress
status, which will would allow --format
to count up
from 0% to 100%.
$ ./floppy --format --verify A:
The --verify
option verifies the low-level format.
For floppy
controller drives, the floppy disk is read from start to finish, after the
low-level format concludes. For IDE floppy drives, the format request to the
drive sets a flag that that requests low-level format verification.
Some IDE floppy drives ignore the verify request, or always verify low-level formats, whether or not it was requested.
$ ./floppy --format -V A:
The -V
option is like --verify
except
that IDE floppy drive
formats are verified manually - like floppy controller drive formats - by
reading the floppy disk from start to finish.