.\" Copyright (c) 1983 Regents of the University of California.
.\" All rights reserved. The Berkeley software License Agreement
.\" specifies the terms and conditions for redistribution.
.\" @(#)rxformat.8v 6.3 (Berkeley) 6/3/86
.TH RXFORMAT 8V "June 3, 1986"
rxformat \- format floppy disks
program formats a diskette in the specified drive
associated with the special device
is normally /dev/rx0, for drive 0, or /dev/rx1,
By default, the diskette is formatted single density;
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
prompts for verification if standard input is a tty
(this allows a user to cleanly
abort the operation; note that
formatting a diskette will destroy any existing data).
Formatting is done by the hardware.
All sectors are zero-filled.
`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.
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.)