Name

format

Synopsis

format x: [options]

Format the disk partition designated by drive letter x (or the diskette in Drive x:).

Options

/FS:type

Specify the filesystem type (NTFS or FAT).

/V:label

Specify the volume label.

/A:n

Set the filesystem’s allocation unit size to n bytes (add the K suffix to designate kilobytes). Valid sizes are powers of 2, from 512 to 64K for NTFS filesystems, and from 8,192 to 16K for FAT filesystems.

The default allocation unit size varies with the partition size: 4K for over 2 GB, 2K for 1 to 2 GB, 1K for 513MB to 1GB, and 512 for 512 MB or less.

/C

Compress files on the new filesystem by default. (This is for NTFS filesystems with an allocation size of 4K or less only.)

/Q

Perform a quick format operation if possible.

/X

Force a volume dismount before formatting.

/T:tracks, /N:sectors

Specify tracks/side and sectors/track (respectively) for floppy disks.

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