RXFORMAT(8V) RXFORMAT(8V) NAME rxformat - format floppy disks SYNOPSIS /etc/rxformat [ -d ] special DESCRIPTION The rxformat program formats a diskette in the specified drive associ‐ ated with the special device special. ( Special is normally /dev/rx0, for drive 0, or /dev/rx1, for drive 1.) By default, the diskette is formatted single density; a -d flag may be supplied to force double density formatting. Single density is compatible with the IBM 3740 standard (128 bytes/sector). In double density, each sector contains 256 bytes of data. Before formatting a diskette rxformat prompts for verification if stan‐ dard input is a tty (this allows a user to cleanly abort the operation; note that formatting a diskette will destroy any existing data). For‐ matting is done by the hardware. All sectors are zero-filled. DIAGNOSTICS ‘No such device’ means that the drive is not ready, usually because no disk is in the drive or the drive door is open. Other error messages are selfexplanatory. FILES /dev/rx? SEE ALSO rx(4V) AUTHOR Helge Skrivervik BUGS A floppy may not be formatted if the header info on sector 1, track 0 has been damaged. Hence, it is not possible to format a completely degaussed disk. (This is actually a problem in the hardware.) 4.2 Berkeley Distribution June 3, 1986 RXFORMAT(8V)