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Apple products and storage drive manufacturers report drive capacity differently
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floppy(8) floppy(8) NAME
floppy - format floppy disks SYNOPSIS
floppy --createrc >/etc/floppy floppy --format /dev/fd0 floppy --format A: floppygtk DESCRIPTION
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. NOTE: 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. When started from an X terminal window, floppy will automatically run floppygtk. OPTIONS
--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 or megabytes. --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 - Create an ext2 (Linux) filesystem on the formatted floppy. This option requires the e2fsprogs package to be installed. This option simply 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 simply 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 only). PROBING FOR AVAILABLE FLOPPY DRIVES
floppy --probe This command probes the hardware and reports on the available floppy drives. A typical output from --probe would be: floppy 0.12 Copyright 2001, 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. CREATING A CONFIGURATION FILE
A configuration file, /etc/floppy must be created before floppy can format floppy disks. This configuration file can be created automati- cally 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 flop- pies 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. DETERMINING AVAILABLE FORMAT CAPACITIES
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". An IDE floppy drive actu- ally returns a total block count. --capacity simply tries some common blocks-per-cylinder values, until it finds one that fits. Format capacities of standard floppy drives are obtained from the floppy device driver. NOTE: 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) CAUTION: 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 util- ity 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. FORMATTING
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 will include a request to verify the low-level format. NOTE: 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 read- ing the floppy disk from start to finish. FILES
/etc/floppy - configuration file. /dev/fd[0-7] - floppy controller drives. /dev/hd[a-h] - ATAPI IDE floppy drives. SEE ALSO
fd(4), mkdosfs(8), mke2fs(8) Double Precision, Inc. February 24, 2003 floppy(8)
