October 2004
Intermediate to advanced
304 pages
7h 44m
English
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Hack #51. Format Your Disk
Lay down some awesome data tracks on diskettes, hard drives, Zip disks, or LS-120 cartridges with FORMAT.
Logical drives and drive letters are created by the process of formatting a partition so that it is ready to accept files. Formatting is done by either the DOS FORMAT program, within the Windows 9x-2003 setup processes, or within the Disk Management console in Windows NT-2003. FORMAT provides limited options: it either creates nonbootable disk space, creates a bootable disk, or it can quick-format (erase) a diskette. For hard drives, FORMAT will lay out either NTFS, FAT-16, or FAT-32 file structures, depending on the filesystem of the partition. For 3.5" diskettes, Zip, and LS-120 media, the filesystem will always be FAT-16.
Tip
FORMAT also establishes a single partition for portable media such as diskettes, Zip (100 and 250), and LS-120 media because they have limited storage capacity well below 512 MB.
In the process, FORMAT also establishes the logical drives or drive lettering scheme we use to refer to our drives. Although the FORMAT program has more options applicable to various diskette capacities, it is also a very powerful utility when applied to hard drives.
To use all of the features of the FORMAT program, you need to be at a DOS or command prompt. Then follow these steps:
Boot with DOS or a startup diskette, boot CD, or bootable USB FLASH drive or hard drive containing the version of the operating system you wish to repair. A Windows 98 or ...
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O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.Julian F.
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.Amir M.
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.