*BSD News Article 81796


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From: j@uriah.heep.sax.de (J Wunsch)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: A: Drive?!?!?
Date: 29 Oct 1996 20:44:36 GMT
Organization: Private BSD site, Dresden
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Reply-To: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de (Joerg Wunsch)
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Zach Heilig <zach@blizzard.gaffaneys.com> wrote:

> Charlie> Am I correct that one would first format the diskette
> Charlie> with fdformat?
> 
> Right, but fdformat is only a low-level formatter, it does not put
> a filesystem (either dos or freebsd) on the disk.

Addendum for high-level formatting MS-DOS file system floppies:

Starting in November, 1995, FreeBSD 2.2-current ships with a `mkdosfs'
utility.  (Since this was a new feature, it didn't make it into the
2.1.5 system where only bugfixes have been allowed.)

Prior to this, you were required to format your floppy on DOS, or with
`mformat' from the mtools.  Since the latter doesn't put a valid (DOS)
bootstrap on the floppy, they are not mountable with the msdosfs
however.  (mkdosfs-generated floppies are; they have a do-nothing
bootstrap.)

-- 
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. ;-)