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.