UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I want to do a low level format like in windows (C:\format c but I don't know how it works in unix or linux.. Can somebody help me ? thnx

Hi,

When you are on a SUN box you can use

the command format (unix) like you use fdisk (DOS), thw format command can also be use for a media scan and low level format
the newfs (unix) command is used like the format command on DOS and creates New File System on a partion.

the command newfs doesn't work on my machine
And the command format is olso unknown for it :\

ps: I have mandrake8.1 linux may be its important to know that..

I believe that if you really want to perform a low level format (replacing all data on the drive with alternating 0's and 1's) you will need to download a utility from the drive manufacture to perform a true low-level format.

If you want to format a partition to create a filesystem then you will want to use `newfs`.

You say that newfs is not recognized on your installation. It may be just that the newfs command is not in the current path. You can check this with `whereis newfs`.

If newfs still doesn't show up then you can run `find / -name "newfs" -print` to find it's location in your system.

As for the usage of newfs, `man newfs` should give you all the gory details.