旼컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴커 � 旼컴컴컴컴컴커 � � 쿑MT Ver 1.00� � � � MANUAL � 粕 � 읕컴컴컴컴컴켸 읏 � � � 蔔栢白 � � 栢栢栢 � � 賽賽 � � � 死 � � 栢 � � 栢 � � 栢 � � 死 � 읕컴컴컴嘗컴컴컴컴컴컴컴콥컴컴컴켸 컴� A high-capacity floppy formatter 컴� 栢栢栢栢栢栢栢 死 Features 死 栢栢栢栢栢栢栢 � Maximum formats : 360K diskette = 820K � 720K diskette = 1066K (NEW!) 1.2M diskette = 1476K � 1.44M diskette = 1722K � Most extended formats can be made bootable � An extended boot sector will boot C: if you leave floppy in A: � Options to change logical disk organization:cluster size & root dir capacity � Allows to create new named formats to save typing � Fast and quite format : drive doesn't play music when marking bad clusters � A lot of low-level options for programmers 栢栢栢栢栢栢栢栢栢栢栢栢栢栢栢� 死 Requirements and limitations死 栢栢栢栢栢栢栢栢栢栢栢栢栢栢栢� FMT needs at least an AT to run. Moreover, it was tested only with high-density drives. It *should* work with DD drives, but you might need to play with options. 2.88M drives are not supported. The reason for the mess is that I had to figure out how diskette BIOS work by experiment. Obviously, experiments were limited by my computer & those of my several friends. I couldn't find a good book covering diskette operations... I'll work on compatibility of the next versions of FMT. In the meanwhile, I'll be very grateful if you let me know about the bugs/compatibility problems of this program. I am sure that version 1.00 has a plenty! Also, this file is not debugged for grammer errors. 栢栢栢栢栢栢栢栢栢栢 死 Distributing FMT 死 栢栢栢栢栢栢栢栢栢栢 You can distribute FMT freely as far as it's copied in original form or you clearly document all changes you have made. No fee should be charged for the program, but you can charge a small fee for distribution. FMT is released as shareware: you can try it for free; if you decide to use it, you are encouraged to register for $15 or whatever you think this program is worth. This is my first shareware program. It will be interesting to see what happens. 栢栢栢栢栢栢栢 死 Finding me 死 栢栢栢栢栢栢栢 This is an interesting question. Now I am studying in Boston University and live on campus, so my current address is valid only to the end of semester (Approx. middle of May 1992). I give it anyway: e-mail : kibirev@CSA.BU.EDU phone : (617)352-5563 mail : Oleg Kibirev, 277 Babcock street Box 1869, Boston MA 02215, USA Please, don't send anything to this address unless you have checked that I am still here by phone or e-mail. Now my home address: Oleg Kibirev 렖ⅲ 뒯〃誓� Ilycha 7 Flat 42 乘. 닽夷�� 7-42 Novosibirsk 630090 �. 뜮¡歲〃褻�,630090 Russia 栢栢栢栢栢栢栢 死 � Thanks � 死 栢栢栢栢栢栢栢 It would be impossible for me to write this program without studying 2 other products. The first is FDFORMAT, the floppy formatter written by Christoph H. Hochst꼝ter. I have used a lot of good ideas from this program in FMT. The important ones are: Idea to use interleave = 2 to fit more sectors on a track Extended boot sector that boots C: instead of A: Sector spinning to improve disk performance Loading BIOS extender to HMA with DOS 5.00 Another one is 800.COM, a tiny TSR by Pasquale Alberto. This program extends diskette BIOS, so that most extended formats can be handled by DOS standard FORMAT, DISKCOPY & DISKCOMP. Studying it's code helped me to understand how to implement high-capacity formats and write a TSR to make them readable by DOS. 栢栢栢栢栢栢栢 死 INT13X.COM 死 栢栢栢栢栢栢栢 You need to load this TSR to make full use of FMT. The simplest way is to run it from AUTOEXEC.BAT, or, with DOS 4+, INSTALL it from CONFIG.SYS. Memory requirements of INT13X shouldn't cause a problem. If you have DOS 5 running in HMA, INT13X will load to the end of the DOS segment, keeping no memory. DOS will even bother to toggle A20 line for me! Otherwise, it will keep 160 bytes. The only option of INT13X is LOW, that will prevent it from loading to HMA. Use if you have any problems without it. You can end up with a strange combination LOADHIGH INT13X LOW If you make a diskette with extended format bootable, make sure that it runs INT13X during startup. Otherwise, the floppy may become unreadable after the first disk change. Note that other disk BIOS extenders will not support a 3�" DD diskette with 11-13 tracks. 栢栢栢栢栢栢� 死컴� FMT 컴콤� 栢栢栢栢栢栢� Running the program with empty command line will display the summary of options. The only mandatory parameter is drive letter - A: or B:. You can stop FMT at any time by two ways. The first is pressing ESC. This is an option for brave - the program will stop even in the middle of DOS or BIOS call. FMT will perform cleanup needed to avoid trouble in this case. However, there are some popup TSRs that refuse to popup if INT 13H never returns. You can defeat the problem by running I13S.COM before & I13R.COM after TSR. Alternatively you can just open drive door. Here is the summary of FMT options. Logical options (like /V or /W) can be disabled by adding '-'. With all options that takes a number, you can specify a hex by omitting ':'. For example : /DF9 == /D:249. It's Ok to specify the option several times - the last occurrence will determine the result. This can be useful with "named formats" (see CONFIG.FMT section) or batch files. �袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴錮袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴� � /T:xx - Number of tracks � /G:xx - Gap length � � /N:xx - Sectors per track � /I:xx - Interleave � � /F:name - Use named format � /M:xx - BIOS media byte � � /V"label" - Set volume label � /L:xx - Format fill char � � /S<:boot> - Copy system to floppy � /Z:xx - Retry count � � /Q - Quick format (Fast DEL *.*) � /W - Write verify � � /E - Test (do everything but format) � /R:xx - Root directory size� � /B - Batch mode (no output/prompts) � /C:xx - Sectors per cluster� � /X:xx - Sector spinning between heads � /D:xx - FAT ID byte � � /Y:xx - Sector spinning between tracks � /A - Verbose output � 훤袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴鳩袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴暠 /T:xx /N:xx - specifies the number of sectors and tracks. The capacity of the diskette in K is simply equal to tracks�sectors. For example /T:82 /N:18 formats a floppy to 1476K. The maximal number of sectors that will work depends on the media: 5�" DD disk : 1-10 sectors (9 = DOS standard) 5�" HD disk : 11-18 sectors (15 is standard) 3�" DD disk : 1-10 sectors in DD drive (DOS puts 9) 1-13 sectors in HD drive 1-12 sectors on some HD drives (Sony ?)� 3�" HD disk : 14-21 sectors (18 = DOS standard) �I have seen only one computer that couldn't format 13 sectors. Interestingly enough, it had no problem reading & writing such diskettes. 12 sectors were fine. As you can see, DOS doesn't get the most from a diskette! For a 720K diskette, it gets 320K less than possible even with the same number of tracks. Of course, in normal life you are only interested in the highest number of sectors or DOS compatible number (See the next option for some useful combinations). You may want to set fewer sectors do that your program keeps all the space of the distribution diskette (this makes virus infection harder). Note that DOS can handle such floppies without INT13X. Number of tracks supported doesn't depend on the diskette. 5�" DD disk drive has rated capacity of 40 tracks, all the others get 80. When you format a 360K diskette in HD drive, it will just format every second track. Because those tracks are still about twice narrower than those of original DD drive, the later can't reliably read such diskette. Try reformatting the diskette several times (with /W-) to reduce the problem. Surprisingly, DOS FORMAT will refuse to format 5�" disk to 80 tracks even with HD drive. FMT won't. This way you can get 800K (/T:80 /N:10) on a 360K disk. A real drive will support more than 40 or 80 tracks. Diskette has much more than 80, so the actual number supported depends on how far the drive head can move. /T:41 or /T:82 seems to be always safe. Your drive may get more. To figure out how much more, start with formatting to an unrealistic number (like /T:90) and listen carefully. Eventually you'll here the head bumping against the stop - this gives an approximate margin. Now, retry the format decreasing the number of tracks by one each time until you here nothing suspicious and the floppy verifies without errors. My drives get 85 tracks! (or 42 for DD drive-compatible formats) It's best to limit number of tracks to 41/82 when transferring files to another computer. You can specify default number of sectors and tracks for each drive in CONFIG.FMT. If you don't, defaults are /T:82 /N:18 for a 5�" drive & /T:82 /N:21 for a 3�" drive. 컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� /F: - an alternative way to specify drive format. Some formats are predefined for you. They are actually shortcuts for /T:xx /N:xx combination. You can define your own formats - their names doesn't have to be numbers and you may specify any other options. �袴袴袴袴錮袴袴袴袴袴錮袴袴袴錮袴袴袴袴袴袴錮袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴敲 � Format � Drive � Media � Stands for � Comment � 勁袴袴袴袴妄袴袴袴袴袴妄袴袴袴妄袴袴袴袴袴袴妄袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴� � /F:360 � 5�" HD/DD � DD � /T:40 /N:9 � DOS standard � � /F:410 � 5�" HD/DD � DD � /T:41 /N:10 � The highest readable by DD drive� 픔컴컴컴컴탠컴컴컴컴컴탠컴컴컴탠컴컴컴컴컴컴탠컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� � /F:720 � 5�" HD � DD � /T:80 /N:9 � Fast format, also DOS standard � � � 3�" HD/DD � � � � 픔컴컴컴컴탠컴컴컴컴컴탠컴컴컴탠컴컴컴컴컴컴탠컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� � /F:820 � 5�" HD � DD � /T:82 /N:10 � The most you can get for 5�" DD � � � 3�" HD/DD � � � diskette � 픔컴컴컴컴탠컴컴컴컴컴탠컴컴컴탠컴컴컴컴컴컴탠컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� � /F:1.2 � 5�" HD � HD � /T:80 /N:15 � DOS standard high-density, you � � /F:1200 � � � � could define this for 3�" � 픔컴컴컴컴탠컴컴컴컴컴탠컴컴컴탠컴컴컴컴컴컴탠컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� � /F:1.48 � 5�" HD � HD � /T:82 /N:18 � � � /F:1476 � � � � � 픔컴컴컴컴탠컴컴컴컴컴탠컴컴컴탠컴컴컴컴컴컴탠컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� � /F:1.07 � 3�" HD � DD � /T:82 /N:13 � Try /F:984 if your drive don't � � /F:1066 � DD=??? � � � get it. Can't be made bootable � 픔컴컴컴컴탠컴컴컴컴컴탠컴컴컴탠컴컴컴컴컴컴탠컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� � /F:984 � 3�" HD/DD?� DD � /T:82 /N:12 � Can't be made bootable � 픔컴컴컴컴탠컴컴컴컴컴탠컴컴컴탠컴컴컴컴컴컴탠컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� � /F:1.44 � 3�" HD � HD � /T:80 /N:18 � DOS standard; can be defined for� � /F:1440 � � � � 5�" drive � 픔컴컴컴컴탠컴컴컴컴컴탠컴컴컴탠컴컴컴컴컴컴탠컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� � /F:1.72 � 3�" HD � HD � /T:82 /N:21 � A lot of space for one floppy! � � /F:1722 � � � � � 훤袴袴袴袴鳩袴袴袴袴袴鳩袴袴袴鳩袴袴袴袴袴袴鳩袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴袴� If you suddenly run out of disk space, try formatting a 360K diskette to /T:50 /N:18 - some can hold it without errors. I won't use it for important data, though. (Once you have at least 11 sectors, reliability doesn't depend on the number). They say, with some drives it's possible to format a 720K diskette to high density. This doesn't work with mine. You can't format a high density floppy to double density. 컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� /V<"label"> - specify a volume label for the diskette. FMT will allow labels with both upper & lowercase letters, blanks, or anything else you want. You can use this option with the label enclosed in quotes (/V"Test of FMT"). If you just specify /V, FMT will ask you to enter the label. The only editing key you can use is backspace, but it's possible to enter any character from 1 to 255 by Alt-XXX sequence. Volume label can be disabled by /V-. Note that FMT sets volume serial numbers in a way different from DOS. It will be in the format MMDD-HHmm and show the date and time when the diskette was formatted (So that you can figure it out just by typing DIR). 컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� /S<:bootfile> - make a diskette bootable. To use this option, you must build what I call a boot image file. Make a diskette with standard format (like 360K) bootable by FORMAT /S or SYS. Copy any additional files you want: HIMEM.SYS, INT13X.COM, CONFIG.SYS, AUTOEXEC.BAT etc. You may want to check that things work as they are supposed to by actually booting from the diskette. Run FMTBOOT.EXE to save results to one file. The options of this program are described in a separate section. For now, let's just use FMTBOOT A: /R to create a file called BOOT.FMT in the same directory with FMT.EXE. Now when you use /S, a diskette (of any format) will be made bootable and all files you wanted will be present in it's root directory (bthw, FMTBOOT completely ignores subdirs). The reason for doing all this is that, unlike DOS FORMAT, FMT can't assume that you are using any particular DOS version. So you must tell it which boot sector and files to use. As an added bonus, now you are not limited to copying only system files: create CONFIG.SYS/AUTOEXEC.BAT to load DOS high, set a lot of buffers and files, run INT13X - whatever you want every bootable diskette to do. In particular, 4DOS users no longer need to rename 4DOS to COMMAND.COM. Also, it's faster to include programs to a boot image file than to copy them to diskette after format - FMT /S is roughly as efficient as DISKCOPY on almost full disk. The shadow side is that boot images tend to be rather large - 100K is typical for DOS 5.00. It would be nice to store these files in compressed form in future versions of FMT. You can have more than one boot file. To specify which one you need, use /S:bootfile format of the switch. The path where FMT will look for the file is determined by the following rules: � If the filespec contains '\' or ':', FMT assumes that you have specified the exact path of the file. � Otherwise, if FMTFILES environment variable is set, it's value will be used as the path of the file (make sure that it ends with \). No other locations are searched. � If neither of above is true, the file will be searched first in the directory where FMT.EXE resides, then in current directory. � /S == /S:BOOT.FMT Note that .FMT extension is not assumed - BOOT.FMT was just my random choice. /S function will fail on some disks with bad sectors in the beginning. If boot sector belongs to DOS 4+, there should be only 3 error-free sectors in the start of the disk. Earlier versions require enough space for the first system file - IO.SYS or IBMBIO.COM. Although FMT doesn't complain, it's impossible to make bootable 3�" disk with 11-13 sectors per track - BIOS is unable to read a boot sector. DOS 5.0 version of SYS can also make most formats bootable. It doesn't work with 5�" DD diskettes that are formatted to 80+ tracks - boot sector of these diskettes have to be patched. For programmers: this is not terribly complicated - just turning double-stepping off: jmp $+3 ; DOS likes EB XX 90 at the start nop and byte ptr cs:[490H],0DFH ; Turn double-stepping off for drive A: jmp short SYS command of earlier versions works only with standard formats. If you try it with an extended one, it will seriously damage the disk. Also, it fails if the disk is not empty (even without a volume label). /S- turns the option off 컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� /Q - perform a quick format. Simply rewrites system areas. This is a very fast way to delete all files on the diskette. Obviously, you can't change physical disk format with this switch set. But changing logical organization is Ok: /R /C /D & /S work fine. Don't use this option is a diskette has bad sectors - FAT is ignored. Also, this option doesn't work if the boot sector is damaged. 컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� /E - test mode. FMT will do everything except actually formatting/writing the diskette. Use with /A to see how your CONFIG.FMT works, check integrity of boot image etc. I use it for debugging. 컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� /B - batch mode (mute). Displays no screen output & doesn't prompt you to press Enter. ESC key still works. The result of formatting can be determined by examining exit code. 컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� /A - display additional technical information about the diskette. Useful when you are playing with more advanced FMT options. Make it default in CONFIG.FMT if you don't mind a lot of output. 컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� /Z:xx - retry count. Specifies the number of times FMT will repeat format/verify/reset cycle before assuming that the track has a bad sector. Disk read and write operations also use this value. The retry count specified by /Z is used only for data errors. Other errors, like timeout, will cause operation to be repeated up to 4 times without changing retry counter - such conditions are often caused by a drive motor which is not yet accelerated to the full speed after the start of operation. If operation fails 4 times, FMT assumes that something is seriously wrong (i.e. drive door is open), prints an error message and dies. If retry count is exceeded for data errors, FMT will scan the track to see which clusters are actually bad. It won't reset disk controller or retry anything during this operation. This keeps noise during the format to minimum (remember DOS format playing music on you drive?) and allows marking any cluster that is even slightly suspicious. Bthw, DOS FORMAT will mark bad the whole track, not just unreadable clusters. To give you more information about the diskette, FMT displays "???" after each track for which the format was retried. If you see this signs after format, it's a good idea to check if the track can be read without problems. Default number of retries is 4. Reduce this to 2 if you want to make sure that all doubtful clusters are marked. Large values (like /Z:16) are useful for old diskettes - those often have bad sectors that disappear after a few retries. May be the surfice of the floppy simply gets cleaned? 컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� /R:xx - root directory size. If you don't specify this option, FMT will allocate space for 112 files if diskette space if less than 1M & 224 entries otherwise. This matches DOS FORMAT for all standard formats. Each directory entry keeps 32 bytes of disk space. Because 112 additional entries keep only 3.5K of disk space, it's rarely useful to reduce default values. You can specify from 1 to 240 files. The value will be rounded up to the nearest multiply of 16 (because the space for directory is allocated in sectors). 컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� /C:xx - cluster size. Again, FMT follows DOS defaults by setting this to 1 if media is > 1M and 2 is it's less. You can specify any value from 1 to 128 (brrr...); DOS requires cluster size to be a power of 2. Empty diskettes with larger cluster size always have more free space. However, each file of moderate size wastes on average a half the cluster size. For example, a diskette with 85 tracks and 18 sectors has 4K more disk space when formatted with 2-sector clusters, but each file wastes on average 512 bytes (compared to 256 bytes for 1-sector clusters). If the usage of the diskette is not known in advance, /C:1 is a good choice. 컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� /W - write verify. This option is active by default - turn it off by /W-. Formatting w/o verify is roughly twice faster than usual, but doesn't mark bad sectors. This is not as terrible as it looks like, because some errors are discovered when writing to diskette. Don't use /W- with floppies that are known to have bad sectors anyway. To see a shocking prove of the fact that BIOS format function completely ignores data errors, try formatting a cleaning diskette with /W-. Actually, this may be an efficient way to clean the drive, because the whole surface of the diskette is used, not just track 0. 컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� /X:xx /Y:yy - enable sector spinning. Normally, the sectors with the same numbers are stored one under another on the disk. As the result, when a head is finished with reading a track, it has very little time to move to the next track and start reading it's first sector. If the drive/computer are slow, it's likely that the head will miss a sector and will have to wait until the disk turns around to start reading. Sector spinning attempts to eliminate the problem by rearranging sectors. For example, suppose that the sectors on the first track are written in the order 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8, on the second 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 etc. Now disk head has some additional time to find the first sector. In some cases, this may speed up disk operations twice! /X specifies the number of positions sector map will shift when the head changes. /Y is the shift between tracks. Optimal values are different from each computer and for each format. You'll have to figure this out by experiment. /X should be probably left zero except for very slow disk drives. Best values of /Y will be usually in the range 0..3. After finding /X & /Y that give the best result for the particular format, add it to your CONFIG.FMT to save typing. If you have no time for experiments, /X:0 /Y:2 is usually a good guess. Because there is no better solution,I have set defaults to the best values on my computer: no spinning except for /N:21 (/Y:2) and /N:13 (/Y:1) with 3�" drive. Note that some non-optimal values of sector spinning can cause pathological slowdown. 굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇� � The last several options of FMT control low-level settings of the diskette � � format. Normally, FMT will preset these options to the values based on the � � number of sectors & tracks specified. You'll rarely need to change this � � if FMT IS working normally on your computer. By playing with these switches � � you may be able to make the program work with non - standard drives or � � strange BIOS. In this case, you'll probably want to define named formats in � � CONFIG.FMT. � � � � Of course, another good use of these options is just playing with diskette � � BIOS. � 굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇굇� /Gxx - gap length. This option specifies a distance (in bytes?) FMT will leave between sectors. Disk controller can't read a track if this distance is too small. From the other hand, if the distance is too large, operation will take longer than necessary. For standard formats, FMT will use the same values as DOS FORMAT - about twice larger than minimal possible. To squeeze more sectors on a track, it's necessary to reduce distance between them. Finally, for the highest capacity formats - 18 sectors per track for 5�" HD diskette, 21 sectors per track for 3�" HD and 11..13 for 3� DD, there is enough space on the track for sectors themselves but not for gaps between them. In these cases, the diskette is formatted with interleave 2, so that another sector will play the role of the "gap". The real gap is set to 2. If some format doesn't work with your drive, try varying /G before giving up. The smallest value that works is about /G18 (/G:24). 컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� /I:xx - interleave. Usually sectors with adjacent numbers will be also adjacent on the track. When this option is !=1, they will be separated by interleave-1 sectors (sometimes one more). For example, a track with 8 sectors will look like: /I:1 12 /I:2 15 /I:3 14 etc. 8 3 8 2 6 7 7 4 4 6 3 2 65 73 85 Reading the entire track will take rotations of the drive. This means that usually /I:1 is the best choice. However, at least /I:2 is needed for some high-capacity formats to provide enough distance between adjacent sectors (See the description of /G). 컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� /Mxx - specify BIOS media byte. This byte, found at 0:(490H+drive_letter), has dramatic influence on format operation. Here is it's layout: Bits 7-6: Data transfer rate : 00=500kbps 01=300kbps 10=250kbps 11=??? (May be used by 2.88M drive?) Bit 5: 1=Double stepping (40 track format) Bit 4: 1=Media established. 0 after read error or disk change. Always set this to 1 for FMT Bit 3: Ignored. BIOS leaves this 0. Bits 2-0: BIOS sets this to: 000 Trying 360K in 360K 100 360K in 1.2M Ok 001 Trying 360K in 1.2M 101 1.2M in 1.2M Ok 010 Trying 1.2M in 1.2M 110 not used 011 360K in 360K Ok 111 All other formats (i.e. 3�" drive) Data transfer rate: This determines the density of the format. 500kbps is high density for both 5�" and 3�" drives. Double density is 300kbps for 5�" and 250kbps for 3�". An interesting trick that allows FMT to squeeze more to a 720K diskette is using 300kbps with 3�" drive. Diskette BIOS by itself won't recognize such density. INT13X will try all 3 data transfer rates until it can verify the first sector of the diskette successfully. By default, FMT will set these bits depending on the number of sectors in the format. It will always use the lowest possible density. Value of 11 in this field is mystery. On my computer, this seems to produce some data transfer rate between 300 & 250 kbps. On another one it just fails. Double stepping: This bit is used to provide compatibility with 360K drive. When it's set, the disk head moves 2 positions for each track. Clearing this bit for 5� DD diskette creates 720K & 800K formats. It's impossible to distinguish 360K & 720K diskettes by checking only track 0. INT13X will try to read track 2 head 0 sector 1 with this bit clear. If the diskette was formatted with double stepping, this track will be actually track 1 and the read will fail. I could never find an AT+ computer with double density drive & don't know what should be in this bit for a true 360K drive. FMT will still use double stepping. If this results in horrible sounds in the middle of formatting, try /m57 for single stepping. By default FMT sets this bit if you specify less than 44 tracks. Bits 2-0: It's a great secret for me how exactly BIOS interprets this value. Looks like values 0..2 (Trying...) mean that BIOS shouldn't try to sense diskette type. By default FMT will use value 7 that seems to work with all formats. If your BIOS gets upset, try values from 0 to 6. One should work. 컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� /Lxx - format fill character. By default FMT will use 0AAH == 10101010B == '�' Alternating 1s & 0s should provide a good test for bad sectors. DOS FORMAT uses 0F6H == '�'. 컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� /Dxx - FAT ID byte. This byte appears in the boot sector & in the beginning of FAT and is *supposed* to be useful to identify diskette type. In reality it's not very informative: for example 0F0H can be used for 1.2, 1.44 or 2.88M. Microsoft MSDOS Programmer's Reference says that "it can be also used for other formats". There is an obvious problem with extended formats. FMT will try to mimic DOS as much as it can. It will set correct values for all standard formats. To give poor program using FAT ID byte another chance to work, it will set the same value for formats that differ from standard only by the number of tracks. All other high density formats (15-21 tracks) are assigned value F0, DD formats - value F9. This makes any version of DOS happy. Note that MSDOS 5.00 completely ignores FAT ID. By setting this option, you may be able to full around a program that refuses to work with an extended format otherwise. 栢栢栢栢栢� 死 FMTBOOT 死 栢栢栢栢栢� This is a program to build boot images for FMT. See the description of /S option for some information about boot images. The usage of FMTBOOT is: FMTBOOT D: [bootfile] [/X] [/S] [/R] [/B] D: - drive letter from which to read boot sector and files. Should specify a diskette with a standard format made bootable by SYS or FORMAT /S. Doesn't have to be A: or B: bootfile - the file to write boot image to. The default filename is BOOT.FMT that will be created in the directory where FMT was found unless the environment value FMTFILES is set. In the later case, the value of FMTFILES will be used as the full path of the file (must end with \). /X - assume extended (DOS 4+) boot sector. FMT will set more information (like volume serial number) and will not check if the first file can be written continuously (except for the first 3 sectors). If you don't use /X or /S, FMTBOOT will recognize sector as extended if it contains signature 29H at offset 26H and "FAT12 " at offset 36H. /S - the opposite of /X. Assume DOS 3.x boot sector. /R - replace existing boot file. By default FMTBOOT will only create new files. With /R it overwrites even read-only ones. /B - batch mode: no screen output. The status of the program can be determined by examining exit code. Like FMT, FMTBOOT can be stopped at any time by ESC. But it may not react to it immediately. Opening drive door also works. The format of boot image file: boot db 512 dup(?) ; Boot sector. FMT will briefly check it to see if this is ; really a boot image. xboot db ? ; 0 = standard boot sector, 1 = extended ; For each file (it's Ok to have no files) direntry db 32 dup (?) ; garbage in the "start cluster" field 栢栢栢栢栢栢栢 死 CONFIG.FMT 死 栢栢栢栢栢栢栢 FMT will accept an optional configuration file that can be used to: � Define your own formats that can be used with /F � Set default options for each drive type � explicitly specify types of your drives is FMT can't guess this properly If FMTFILES environment variable is set, it's value is assumed to be the path of CONFIG.FMT (remember to add \). No other location will be searched. Setting FMTFILES to an invalid directory (like SET FMTFILES=$) will prevent FMT from using configuration file. Otherwise, FMT will search for CONFIG.FMT in the directory where FMT.EXE resides and in the current directory. Each non-empty line in CONFIG.FMT should start from '3' or '5' - the type of disk drive (5�" or 3�") this line applies to. The rest of the line can be: A: or B: - specify the type of disk drive. Without this, FMT will read the type from CMOS. Example: 3 A: ; A: is a 3�" drive DEFAULT - specify default switches for this drive type. For example: 5 DEFAULT /T:85 /N:18 /V /A ; format 5�" diskettes to 85 tracks & 18 sectors ; by default. Also, display tech info & ask for volume label "default defaults" are 5 DEFAULT /T:82 /N:18 & 3 DEFAULT /T:82 /N:21 - the highest capacity formats for each drive. Any other word - create a named format. When you specify /F:word, it will have the same effect as if you have typed all the options found on this line. Named formats are drive specific, so the same name can specify different options for different drives. The name of the option doesn't have to be a number. If there are several lines defining the format with the same name and drive type, only the first will be considered. Because default formats are added to the end of the file, they can be redefined. Examples: 5 1530 /T:85 /N:18 3 DDSYS /T:85 /N:10 /S:BOOT.850 5 DDSYS /T:85 /N:10 /S:BOOT.850 ; You want this to be the same for both drives 5 360 /T:40 /N:9 /M57 /Y:2 ; Redefine existing format to work with DD drive ; I wonder if the above line is needed 5 360HD /T:40 /N:9 ; This is for HD drive 3 1.11 /F:1.07 /T:85 ; Ok to have nested formats. Just don't make them ; recursive! As you could guess from the examples, you can add comments to CONFIG.FMT using ';'. 栢栢栢栢栢栢栢 死 Exit codes 死 栢栢栢栢栢栢栢 FMT: 0 = Success 1 = No drive letter specified 2 = Unknown named format 3 = Invalid option 4 = Syntax error in CONFIG.FMT 5 = Quick Format failed 6 = Error writing to the diskette 7 = Drive is not ready or diskette is write protected 8 = Boot image file doesn't exist or has an error 9 = No room for system (bad sector to early or just out of disk space) 10 = Out of memory (shouldn't happen very often) 255 = Interrupted by ESC FMTBOOT: 0 = Ok 1 = No drive specified 2 = Invalid option 3 = Can't create output file 4 = Out of memory 5 = Error reading diskette 6 = Out of disk space 7 = Error writing boot image 255 = Interrupted by ESC Both FMT & FMTBOOT have /B option that make them to run in the absolute silence. A program or batch file can call them & use exit code to report the result. 旼� � � � 납 넬�.� . � 납 悶悶 킴 쨀온悶悶왯 � 납 넨�_ 냅엿납납 넨납 읕牡牡牡� � 좇잎응 잎잎