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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.mira.net.au!yarrina.connect.com.au!warrane.connect.com.au!news.syd.connect.com.au!news.mel.connect.com.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!paladin.american.edu!gatech!newsfeed.internetmci.com!howland.reston.ans.net!blackbush.xlink.net!zib-berlin.de!news.tu-chemnitz.de!irz401!uriah.heep!news From: j@uriah.heep.sax.de (J Wunsch) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: fdformat & mount simple question Date: 12 Jan 1996 22:54:32 GMT Organization: Private BSD site, Dresden Lines: 29 Message-ID: <4d6or8$h7c@uriah.heep.sax.de> References: <4d04qn$37t@gol2.gol.com> <4d1ckh$nqi@hamilton.maths.tcd.ie> Reply-To: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de (Joerg Wunsch) NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.heep.sax.de Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Newsreader: knews 0.9.3 dwmalone@maths.tcd.ie (David Malone) writes: > >I want to backup /etc using floppies and dump. First I formatted a 3.5" > >disk using the command > > >fdformat -f 1440 > > >and it seemed to format fie. > > I think I used mtools to format a disk, with a msdos file system > last time. I've got a feeling fdformat formats the disk without putting > a filesystem on it. You're confusing low-level format (fdformat(8)) and high-level format (disklabel(8), newfs(8), mkdsofs(8) [in -current, use mformat(1) on an older system]). Both are unrelated, though you might not know this when coming from an M$ system. Unlike certain M$ systems, you can also use floppies under Unix that have not been high-level formatted. They are treated as a ``raw medium'' then, similar to a tape. For many people, this is the more typical (and convenient) method instead of some file system. -- cheers, J"org joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)