Format command options?

Thread view:

Enable EMail Alerts

Start New Thread

Thread rating:

Hung @ PC2 - 22 Oct 2003 05:35 GMT

Hi, I have been wanting to ask this question. After we boot off a Win98se
boot disk and issue a format /? command, we get a list of the switches that
can be used. I remember using something like format c: /u where u is for
unconditional formatting. The switch u is not listed in the help.

Another thing how do I prevent the formatting from trying to recover an
allocation unit. For example I have an old Quantum 1.2Gb harddisk with 8 MB
bad sectors. It took me 20 hours just to format it because the formatting is
trying to recover allocation units! Can't it just ignore previously marked
Bad Sectors??

Thanks,

Hung

Reply to this Message

Jeff Richards - 22 Oct 2003 22:29 GMT

One purpose of a format is to ignore the previous bad sectors and test them
again, so I don't think you can simply tell it to ignore them. If the
sectors are mapped out at a level below the formatting procedure (for
instance, using the hard disk drive electronics to internally re-map the
sectors) then the format procedure will not see them and will not re-test
them.

The /q option tells format not to retest the disk at all, but that's not
quite what you're after.

The /U option tells format to ignore any existing formatting for the disk
and simply go ahead with the default disk format, or the format specified on
the command line. It also deletes all existing data, so the disk cannot be
unformatted. It may vary between versions. It seems to be accepted even
when it's not listed, but I can't tell if it does anything or not.
--
Jeff Richards
MS MVP W95/W98

> Hi, I have been wanting to ask this question. After we boot off a Win98se
> boot disk and issue a format /? command, we get a list of the switches that
[quoted text clipped - 10 lines]
>
> Hung

Reply to this Message