FORMAT

Formats magnetic disks and partitions in specified file formats (FAT, FAT32, NTFS). Works with floppy and hard disks.

Use

Type “FORMAT” followed by the drive letter and a colon, a space, then /fs: and the name of the file system (FAT, FAT32, or NTFS). For example, to format drive E: as FAT32, you would type:

FORMAT E: /fs:FAT32

Floppy disks can be formatted only as FAT. FAT is the designation for FAT16. If you omit the /fs switch, the system will use the default.

Switches

/fs: followed by the desired file system: This switch determines the file system, but if you leave it out, Windows will use the default. For example, floppies will automatically be formatted as FAT.

/q: Quick format. Skips a sector-by-sector surface scan of the disk. Use only with a disk known not to have any bad sectors.

/c: Compress newly added files. Works only with NTFS partitions.

/s: (95, 98, and DOS only) Formats a floppy and copies the three DOS files (Command.com, IO.sys, MSDOS.sys) onto it. This switch will work in 95 and 98, and any time the computer is booted into MS-DOS.

Note

Formatting a disk erases all data on the disk, regardless of the method used to format.