format c/u/s

[NuclearHeadache]

Is there such a command as

format c/u/s?

I have all these por.... ahem .... por...k chop pictures on my hdd and I want to unconditionally format my drive.

Basically... someone told me that if I want to format unconditionally and also make the hdd the primary one being used, I'd have to format using this command.

Any truth in this?

If this is not true, how do I go abouts doing this "unconditional" format with also writting system files to the hdd?

Norm if yur out there....somewhere....ANSWER ME DAMNIT

[Alex_Select]

East-Tec Eraser 2000, or Nots and Bolts did a good job for me way back when....

[Norm]

Format
Formats a disk for use with MS-Dos.

Syntax:
FORMAT drive: [/Switches]

Switches

/V[:label] Specifies a volume label. If the /V switch is omitted, or label is not specified, a prompt for a volume label is displayed after formatting is completed.
If no volume label is required, the prompt can be avoided by specifying: /V:""
If a label is specified and more than one disk is formatted in a session, all of the disks will be given the same volume label.
/Q "Quick" format of a previously formatted disk.
The disk's file allocation table (FAT) and root directory are deleted but it is not scanned for bad areas.
/S Copies system files to the formatted disk (to make a boot disk).
/B Allocates space on the formatted disk for system files.
/F:size Formats a disk to a capacity other than that for which the drive was designed.
size can be: 360, 720, 1.2, 1.44, 2.88.
/T:tracks Specifies the number of tracks per disk side.
/N:sectors Specifies the number of sectors per track.
/1 Formats a single side of a floppy disk.
/4 Formats a 5.25-inch 360K floppy disk in a high-density drive.
/8 Formats eight sectors per track
/C Tests clusters that are currently marked "bad." By default, if a disk contains clusters that have been marked as "bad", FORMAT does not retest the clusters; it simply leaves them marked "bad".
/U Unconditional format. This switch was instituted in Dos 5 along with the "Unformat" command. In Dos 7.x the Unformat command has been dropped and all formatting is unconditional. This switch is therefore redundant but presumably maintained so that batch files written with it will not fail.
/AUTOTEST Formatting proceeds without further user input or warning messages. As this will also work with hard drives, it is probably advisable to preconfigure the command in a batch file rather than using it directly from the command line. The AUTOEST switch can be used in conjunction with the /U, /S, and /F switches. It is not compatible with /Q (causing an error message) and /V is ignored.
/BACKUP Not sure what this does. Seems to be similar to /AUTOTEST except that it asks for a Volume label, and displays data on number of bytes available, etc. Haven't tried it with c: drive so don't know whether it warns before formatting a hard drive.
/SELECT Not sure what this does - but it seems to "unformat" a disk. Anyway, it renders the disk a "non-system disk" (which can be reformatted).
/Z:n Specifies the cluster size in multiples of 512 bytes. Valid values of n are:
n Cluster size n Cluster size
1 512 bytes 16 8K
2 1K 32 16K
4 2K 64 32K
8 4K

[NuclearHeadache]

WTF Norm

Oh I see what's going on here.... you're an alien eh! And you accidentaly wrote in your "alien language".
Your secret's safe with me buddy..... Oh yeah... safe alrighty

*Runs to the Toronto Star News Paper*

Norm, it looks like it says there's no need to type the /s as well.
Am I correct?
Only making sure cus this is my A+ TEACHER I'm talking about here. I had to correct him on a few hardware issues a few times but I'm not that good at Dos.

[Norm]

format c: is all you need, but I always use format c: /s anyway.

[Murman]

What Norm showed you was all the switch's you can use with the format command... format /? will give you the switch's

Looking at the question on the "switchs"


/C Tests clusters that are currently marked "bad." By default, if a disk contains clusters that have been marked as "bad", FORMAT does not retest the clusters; it simply leaves them marked "bad".

I guess if you know you have bad clusters on your HD it would speed up the format process a bit. When you format a HD and it does have bad clusters it try's to recover the clusters and could extend the format time a bit.
-----
/U Unconditional format. This switch was instituted in Dos 5 along with the "Unformat" command. In Dos 7.x the Unformat command has been dropped and all formatting is unconditional. This switch is therefore redundant but presumably maintained so that batch files written with it will not fail.

format C: (or whatever drive your formating) covers this
-----

/S Copies system files to the formatted disk (to make a boot disk).

Just makes the HD bootable .. like a floppy boot disk but you don't get the options for CD support.


If Mr. A+ teacher insists on using the switch's .. at least tell him to use emm this way format x: /c /u /s (x being whatever drive ltr)


And like DOS master said .. really no need for emm.

However I have found using format /Q helpfull at times when reloading mulitable machines with allready formated HD's .. it's about 2 minutes for format a hard drive.

[YeOldeStonecat]

Originally posted by NuclearHeadache
it looks like it says there's no need to type the /s as well.
Am I correct?
Only making sure cus this is my A+ TEACHER I'm talking about here. I had to correct him on a few hardware issues a few times but I'm not that good at Dos.

Ever since Windows 95 came out, when you're about to install the OS, there is not a need to format your hard drive via "/s"....you don't need to slap DOS on there before running Windows setup. If you need cd-rom support, and you only have a Win95 boot disk, then you need to find one with the drivers for your cd-rom, often proprietory. With Windows 98, Microsoft finally got a clue and included generic cd-rom support when you make a DOS boot disk, which covers just about all of the atapi cd-roms out there. You can also install Win95 perfectly fine from a hard drive that you formatted with a 98 boot disk, again, you don't need to 'sys' it. If you have an earlier version (read Pre OSR2 Win95B) that doesn't support FAT32, then when you format with a 98 boot disk, simply don't choose the maximum allowable size, and it will make it FAT/FAT16 instead of 32.

[Joe]

Format regualraly using "Format X:" replacing X with the drive to be formatted... then use fdisk to select the active partition/hard drive.