Tandy 1000 MS-DOS Reference Manual page 116

Chapter 6 / Command Reference
FORMAT External
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1 FORMAT
drive: [lB] [IV] [11] [18] [IS]
Prepares the disk in the specified drive for use by defining the
tracks and sectors and writing system information onto the disk.
Parameters
drive: is the disk drive to format.
IB formats a diskette with eight sectors per track and allocates
space for the hidden system files. If you use this switch, you can
place any version of MS-DOS on the diskette using that version's
SYS command. If you do not use IB, you can place only MS-DOS
version 3.2 on the diskette with the SYS command. Do not use
IB with IS or IV.
IV prompts for a volume label after the disk is formatted. A vol-
ume label can be as many as 11 characters long. A volume label
identifies the disk.
11 performs a single-sided diskette format. (If the drive in which
you are formatting is double-sided, and you do not specify this
switch, you cannot use the newly formatted diskette in a single-
sided drive.) If you omit 11, FORMAT performs a double-sided
format.
18 formats eight sectors per track on a diskette if you do not
specify 18, FORMAT defaults to nine sectors per track. (You
should note that FORMAT always creates nine sectors per
track; the 18 switch tells MS-DOS to use only eight of those
sectors.)
IS copies the hidden system files and the COMMAND file to the
disk after it is formatted. The newly formatted disk becomes a
system disk. IS must be the last switch in the FORMAT
command.
Notes and Suggestions
• This command initializes the directory and file allocation
tables on a disk. You must use this command to format all
new disks before MS-DOS can use them.
• Only the IV and IS switches are valid for a hard disk format.
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