rmformat(1) User Commands rmformat(1)NAMErmformat - removable rewritable media format utility
SYNOPSISrmformat [-DeHUv] [-b label] [-c blockno] [-Fquick | long | force ]
[-s filename] [devname]
rmformat-V read | write devname
rmformat-l [devname]
DESCRIPTION
The rmformat utility is used to format, label, partition, and perform
other miscellaneous functions on removable, rewritable media that
include floppy drives, and the PCMCIA memory and ata cards. The rmfor‐
mat utility should also be used with all USB mass storage devices,
including USB hard drives. This utility can also be used for the veri‐
fication and surface analysis and for repair of the bad sectors found
during verification if the drive or the driver supports bad block man‐
agement.
After formatting, rmformat writes the label, which covers the full
capacity of the media as one slice on floppy and PCMCIA memory cards to
maintain compatibility with the behavior of fdformat. The partition
information can be changed with the help of other options provided by
rmformat.
OPTIONS
The following options are supported:
-b label
Labels the media with a SUNOS label. A SUNOS volume label name is
restricted to 8 characters. For writing a DOS Volume label, the
user should use mkfs_pcfs(1M).
-c blockno
Corrects and repairs the given block. This correct and repair
option may not be applicable to all devices supported by rmformat,
as some devices may have a drive with bad block management capabil‐
ity and others may have this option implemented in the driver. If
the drive or driver supports bad block management, a best effort is
made to rectify the bad block. If the bad block still cannot be
rectified, a message is displayed to indicate the failure to
repair. The block number can be provided in decimal, octal, or
hexadecimal format.
The normal floppy and PCMCIA memory and ata cards do not support
bad block management.
-D
Formats a 720KB (3.5 inch) double density diskette. This is the
default for double density type drives. This option is needed if
the drive is a high or extended-density type.
-e
Ejects the media upon completion. This feature may not be available
if the drive does not support motorized eject.
-F quick | long | force
Formats the media.
The quick option starts a format without certification or format
with limited certification of certain tracks on the media.
The long option starts a complete format. For some devices this
might include the certification of the whole media by the drive
itself.
The force option to format is provided to start a long format with‐
out user confirmation before the format is started.
In legacy media such as floppy drives, all options start a long
format depending on the mode (Extended Density mode, High Density
mode, or Double Density mode) with which the floppy drive operates
by default. On PCMCIA memory cards, all options start a long for‐
mat.
-H
Formats a 1.44 MB (3.5 inch) high density diskette. This is the
default for high density type drives. It is needed if the drive is
the Extended Density type.
-l
Lists all removable devices. By default, without any options,
rmformat also lists all removable devices. If the dev_name is
given, rmformat lists the device associated with the dev_name. The
output shows the device pathname, vendor information, and the
device type.
-s filename
Enables the user to lay out the partition information in the SUNOS
label.
The user should provide a file as input with information about each
slice in a format providing byte offset, size required, tags, and
flags, as follows:
slices: n = offset, size [, flags, tags]
where n is the slice number, offset is the byte offset at which the
slice n starts, and size is the required size for slice n. Both
offset and size must be a multiple of 512 bytes. These numbers can
be represented as decimal, hexadecimal, or octal numbers. No float‐
ing point numbers are accepted. Details about maximum number of
slices can be obtained from the .
To specify the size or offset in kilobytes, megabytes, or giga‐
bytes, add KB, MB, GB, respectively. A number without a suffix is
assumed to be a byte offset. The flags are represented as follows:
wm = read-write, mountable
wu = read-write, unmountable
ru = read-only, unmountable
The tags are represented as follows: unassigned, boot, root, swap,
usr, backup, stand, var, home, alternates.
The tags and flags can be omitted from the four tuple when finer
control on those values is not required. It is required to omit
both or include both. If the tags and flags are omitted from the
four tuple for a particular slice, a default value for each is
assumed. The default value for flags is wm and for tags is unas‐
signed.
Either full tag names can be provided or an abbreviation for the
tags can be used. The abbreviations can be the first two or more
letters from the standard tag names. rmformat is case insensitive
in handling the defined tags & flags.
Slice specifications are separated by :
For example:
slices: 0 = 0, 30MB, "wm", "home" :
1 = 30MB, 51MB :
2 = 0, 100MB, "wm", "backup" :
6 = 81MB, 19MB
rmformat does the necessary checking to detect any overlapping par‐
titions or illegal requests to addresses beyond the capacity of the
media under consideration. There can be only one slice information
entry for each slice n. If multiple slice information entries for
the same slice n are provided, an appropriate error message is dis‐
played. The slice 2 is the backup slice covering the whole disk
capacity. The pound sign character, #, can be used to describe a
line of comments in the input file. If the line starts with #, then
rmformat ignores all the characters following # until the end of
the line.
Partitioning some of the media with very small capacity is permit‐
ted, but be cautious in using this option on such devices.
-U
Performs umount on any file systems and then formats. See
mount(1M). This option unmounts all the mounted slices and issues a
long format on the device requested.
-V read | write
Verifies each block of media after format. The write verification
is a destructive mechanism. The user is queried for confirmation
before the verification is started. The output of this option is a
list of block numbers, which are identified as bad.
The read verification only verifies the blocks and report the
blocks which are prone to errors.
The list of block numbers displayed can be used with the -c option
for repairing.
OPERANDS
The following operand is supported:
devname devname can be provided as absolute device pathname
or relative pathname for the device from the cur‐
rent working directory or the nickname as exported
by the System Volume manager. See vold(1M).
For floppy devices, to access the first drive use
/dev/rdiskette0 (for systems without volume manage‐
ment) or floppy0 (for systems with volume manage‐
ment). Specify /dev/rdiskette1 (for systems without
volume management) or floppy1 (for systems with
volume management) to use the second drive.
For systems without volume management running, the
user can also provide the absolute device pathname
as /dev/rdsk/c?t?d?s? or the appropriate relative
device pathname from the current working directory.
EXAMPLES
Example 1 Formatting a Diskette
example$ rmformat-F quick /dev/rdiskette
Formatting will erase all the data on disk.
Do you want to continue? (y/n)y
Example 2 Formatting a Diskette for a UFS File System
The following example formats a diskette and creates a UFS file system:
example$ rmformat-F quick /vol/dev/aliases/floppy0
Formatting will erase all the data on disk.
Do you want to continue? (y/n)y
example$ su
# /usr/sbin/newfs /vol/dev/aliases/floppy0
newfs: construct a new file system /dev/rdiskette: (y/n)? y
/dev/rdiskette: 2880 sectors in 80 cylinders of 2 tracks, 18 sectors
1.4MB in 5 cyl groups (16 c/g, 0.28MB/g, 128 i/g)
super-block backups (for fsck -F ufs -o b=#) at:
32, 640, 1184, 1792, 2336,
#
Example 3 Formatting Removable Media for a PCFS File System
The following example shows how to create an alternate fdisk partition:
example$ rmformat-F quick /dev/rdsk/c0t4d0s2:c
Formatting will erase all the data on disk.
Do you want to continue? (y/n)y
example$ su
# fdisk /dev/rdsk/c0t4d0s2:c
# mkfs -F pcfs /dev/rdsk/c0t4d0s2:c
Construct a new FAT file system on /dev/rdsk/c0t4d0s2:c: (y/n)? y
#
The following example describes how to create a PCFS file system with‐
out an fdisk partition:
example$ rmformat-F quick /dev/rdiskette
Formatting will erase all the data on disk.
Do you want to continue? (y/n)y
example$ su
# mkfs -F pcfs -o nofdisk,size=2 /dev/rdiskette
Construct a new FAT file system on /dev/rdiskette: (y/n)? y
#
Example 4 Listing All Removable Devices
The following example shows how to list removable devices. This output
shows that vold is on.
example$ rmformat-l
Looking for devices...
1. Volmgt Node: /vol/dev/aliases/rmdisk1
Logical Node: /dev/rdsk/c5t0d0s2
Physical Node: /pci@1e,600000/usb@b/hub@2/storage@4/disk@0,0
Connected Device: TEAC FD-05PUB 1026
Device Type: Floppy drive
FILES
/vol/dev/diskette0 Directory providing block device
access for the media in floppy
drive 0.
/vol/dev/rdiskette0 Directory providing character
device access for the media in
floppy drive 0.
/vol/dev/aliases Directory providing symbolic links
to the character devices for the
different media under the control
of volume management using appro‐
priate alias.
/vol/dev/aliases/floppy0 Symbolic link to the character
device for the media in floppy
drive 0.
/dev/rdiskette Symbolic link providing character
device access for the media in the
primary floppy drive, usually drive
0.
/vol/dev/dsk Directory providing block device
access for the PCMCIA memory and
ata cards and removable media
devices.
/vol/dev/rdsk Directory providing character
device access for the PCMCIA memory
and ata cards and removable media
devices.
/vol/dev/aliases/pcmemS Symbolic link to the character
device for the PCMCIA memory card
in socket S, where S represents a
PCMCIA socket number.
/vol/dev/aliases/rmdisk0 Symbolic link to the generic remov‐
able media device that is not a CD-
ROM, floppy, DVD-ROM, PCMCIA memory
card, and so forth.
/dev/rdsk Directory providing character
device access for the PCMCIA memory
and ata cards and other removable
devices.
/dev/dsk Directory providing block device
access for the PCMCIA memory and
ata cards and other removable media
devices.
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
┌─────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
│ ATTRIBUTE TYPE │ ATTRIBUTE VALUE │
├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│Availability │SUNWrmvolmgr │
└─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘
SEE ALSOcpio(1), eject(1), fdformat(1), tar(1), volcancel(1), volcheck(1),
volmissing(1), volrmmount(1), format(1M), mkfs_pcfs(1M), mount(1M),
newfs(1M), prtvtoc(1M), rmmount(1M), rpc.smserverd(1M), vold(1M),
rmmount.conf(4), vold.conf(4), attributes(5), scsa2usb(7D), sd(7D),
pcfs(7FS), udfs(7FS)NOTES
A rewritable media or PCMCIA memory card or PCMCIA ata card containing
a ufs file system created on a SPARC-based system (using newfs(1M)) is
not identical to a rewritable media or PCMCIA memory card containing a
ufs file system created on an x86 based system. Do not interchange any
removable media containing ufs between these platforms; use cpio(1) or
tar(1) to transfer files on diskettes or memory cards between them. For
interchangeable filesystems refer to pcfs(7FS) and udfs(7FS).
rmformat might not list all removable devices in virtualization envi‐
ronments.
BUGS
Currently, bad sector mapping is not supported on floppy diskettes or
PCMCIA memory cards. Therefore, a diskette or memory card is unusable
if rmformat finds an error (bad sector).
SunOS 5.10 19 Feb 2009 rmformat(1)
