DOKK / manpages / debian 11 / util-linux / fdformat.8.en
FDFORMAT(8) System Administration FDFORMAT(8)

fdformat - low-level format a floppy disk

fdformat [options] device

fdformat does a low-level format on a floppy disk. device is usually one of the following (for floppy devices the major = 2, and the minor is shown for informational purposes only):

/dev/fd0d360  (minor = 4)
/dev/fd0h1200 (minor = 8)
/dev/fd0D360  (minor = 12)
/dev/fd0H360  (minor = 12)
/dev/fd0D720  (minor = 16)
/dev/fd0H720  (minor = 16)
/dev/fd0h360  (minor = 20)
/dev/fd0h720  (minor = 24)
/dev/fd0H1440 (minor = 28)
/dev/fd1d360  (minor = 5)
/dev/fd1h1200 (minor = 9)
/dev/fd1D360  (minor = 13)
/dev/fd1H360  (minor = 13)
/dev/fd1D720  (minor = 17)
/dev/fd1H720  (minor = 17)
/dev/fd1h360  (minor = 21)
/dev/fd1h720  (minor = 25)
/dev/fd1H1440 (minor = 29)

The generic floppy devices, /dev/fd0 and /dev/fd1, will fail to work with fdformat when a non-standard format is being used, or if the format has not been autodetected earlier. In this case, use setfdprm(8) to load the disk parameters.

Start at the track N (default is 0).
Stop at the track N.
Try to repair tracks failed during the verification (max N retries).
Skip the verification that is normally performed after the formatting.
Display version information and exit.
Display help text and exit.

This utility does not handle USB floppy disk drives. Use ufiformat(8) instead.

Werner Almesberger (almesber@nessie.cs.id.ethz.ch)

fd(4), emkfs(8), mkfs(8), setfdprm(8), ufiformat(8)

The fdformat command is part of the util-linux package and is available from https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.

June 2020 util-linux