Chapter 6 / Command Reference
FORMAT
External
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~
1 FORMAT drive:
[lB]
[IV]
[11] [18]
[IS]
Prepares
the
disk
in
the
specified drive
for
use by defining
the
tracks
and
sectors and
writing
system information onto
the
disk.
Parameters
drive: is
the
disk drive to format.
IB formats a diskette
with
eight sectors per
track
and allocates
space
for
the
hidden system files.
If
you use
this
switch, you
can
place any version of MS-DOS on
the
diskette using
that
version's
SYS command.
If
you
do
not use IB, you
can
place only MS-DOS
version 3.2 on
the
diskette
with
the SYS command.
Do
not use
IB
with
IS
or
IV.
IV
prompts
for
a volume label after the disk is formatted. A
vol-
ume label can be as many as
11
characters long. A volume label
identifies
the
disk.
11
performs a single-sided diskette format. (If the drive
in
which
you
are
formatting is double-sided, and you
do
not specify
this
switch,
you
cannot use
the
newly formatted diskette
in
a single-
sided drive.)
If
you
omit
11,
FORMAT performs a double-sided
format.
18
formats eight sectors per
track
on
a diskette
if
you
do
not
specify
18,
FORMAT defaults to nine sectors per track.
(You
should note
that
FORMAT always
creates
nine sectors
per
track; the
18
switch tells MS-DOS to
use
only eight of those
sectors.)
IS
copies
the
hidden system files and
the
COMMAND file to
the
disk after
it
is formatted. The newly formatted disk becomes a
system disk.
IS
must
be
the
last
switch
in
the FORMAT
command.
Notes
and
Suggestions
• This command initializes the directory and file allocation
tables on a disk.
You
must
use
this
command to format
all
new disks before MS-DOS can use them.
• Only
the
IV
and
IS
switches
are
valid
for
a
hard
disk format.
102
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