On Wed, 03 Dec 2014 14:29:56 -0500, Eric Auer <e.a...@jpberlin.de> wrote:
> > Hi! > >> The DOS format utility is kind of an anachronism at this point. Usually >> it >> takes a long time to format a partition because it's iterating through >> every sector of the disk. It's completely unnecessary these days. All it >> really needs to do is write a boot sector, FAT, and root directory. > > That is why FORMAT has options for QUICK format, which does > exactly that: Write only the FAT, root dir and boot sector. > > Optionally, that combines with making a backup of those areas > near the end of the disk, allowing a later UNFORMAT. But of > course quick format is quickest without that backup step ;-) > > Of course both do not work with never-yet-formatted floppies. > > Eric When formatting a harddisk partition (or flash or whatever the actual medium is), MS FORMAT relies on a correct boot sector already having been created by FDISK. I discovered this not long ago when I tried to resize a partition by tweaking the MBR with a sector editor. I changed a 20GB partition to 60GB. But when I ran FORMAT, it continued to report 20GB. I had to change the size in the partition's boot sector as well. And this is just to perform a slow format. As for quick format, it doesn't work unless the partition has previously been slow-formatted to create a valid FAT. This behavior makes sense in the context of FAT16 where the disk is checked for bad clusters which can then be marked in the FAT. In the context of FAT32, not so much... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Download BIRT iHub F-Type - The Free Enterprise-Grade BIRT Server from Actuate! Instantly Supercharge Your Business Reports and Dashboards with Interactivity, Sharing, Native Excel Exports, App Integration & more Get technology previously reserved for billion-dollar corporations, FREE http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=164703151&iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
