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Windows XP Pocket Reference
book

Windows XP Pocket Reference

by David A. Karp
December 2002
Beginner to intermediate
192 pages
7h 4m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Windows XP Pocket Reference

Name

Format — \windows\system32\format.com

Synopsis

Before data can be stored on a floppy disk, hard disk, or any of a variety of removable media disks (such as Zip disks), the disk must be formatted. This process creates various low-level data structures on the disk, such as the filesystem (FAT, FAT32, NTFS, etc.). It also tests the disk surface for errors and stores bad sectors in a table that will keep them from being used. If there's any data on the disk, it will be erased. The options for Format are:

format volume [/q] [/c] [/x] [/v:label] [/fs:filesystem]

Option

Description

volume

The drive letter, followed by a colon, containing the media to be formatted. Example: format a:.

/q

Performs a "quick" format (only wipes out the file table).

/c

Compress all files by default (NTFS volumes only).

/x

Forces the volume to dismount first if necessary.

/v:label

Specifies the volume label, an arbitrary title you assign to any disk. It can be up to 11 characters and can include spaces.

/fs:filesystem

Specifies the filesystem; can be fat, fat32, or ntfs.

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 0596004257Errata