# The KFloppy Formatter Handbook

David Rugge and Bernd Johannes Wuebben
Version 1.1.0, January 24, 1999

This Handbook describes KFloppy Formatter Version 1.1.0

KFloppy

KDE
kfloppy

## Introduction

KFloppy Formatter is a program that lets you format 3.5" and 5.25" floppy disks.

I hope you will enjoy this little tool. Please report any problems or feature requests to the KDE mailing lists.

Bernd Johannes Wuebben <wuebben@math.cornell.edu>

## Installation

### How to obtain KFloppy Formatter

KFloppy Formatter is part of the KDE project http://www.kde.org. KFloppy Formatter can be found in the kdeutils package on ftp://ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/, the main ftp site of the KDE project.

### Requirements

In order to successfully compile KFloppy Formatter, you need the latest versions of the KDE libraries. All required libraries as well as KFloppy Formatter itself can be found on ftp://ftp.kde.org/pub/kde/.

### Compilation and installation

In order to compile and install KFloppy Formatter on your system, type the following in the base directory of the KFloppy distribution:

    % ./configure
    % make
    % make install

Since KFloppy Formatter uses `autoconf` you should have not trouble compiling it. Should you run into problems please report them to the KDE mailing lists.

## Formatting Disks with KFloppy

To use KFloppy you must have either a 5.25" or 3.5" disk drive connected to your system. Insert the disk you want to format. Do not mount it. Then, select the appropriate options as described below.

### Floppy Drive

Select the drive that contains the disk you wish to format. For those of you not familiar with PC drive labelling conventions, letter `A:` corresponds to the `fd0` device and `B:` is the `fd1` device. Almost all new computers will only have one 3.5" floppy as their `A:` (`fd0`) drive.

### Density

Select the density of the disk you wish to format. Most of the 3.5" and 5.25" disks produced in the last 5 years are high density (HD) disks. Older disks may only support the double density (DD) format. High density disks can be formatted as double density, but you will not be able to use the full 1.44 Mbytes or 1.2 Mbytes of space on the disk. The 800k disk format used by Macintosh floppy drives is not currently supported, and cannot be supported at all on PC floppy drives since they are not capable of formatting disks in that fashion.

Here is a list of the properties for each disk type and density combination:

- 3.5" DD: double-sided, 80 tracks, 9 sectors/track - 720K

- 3.5" HD: double-sided, 80 tracks, 18 sectors/track - 1440K

- 5.25" DD: double-sided, 40 tracks, 9 sectors/track - 360K

- 5.25" HD: double-sided, 80 tracks, 15 sectors/track - 1200K

### File Systems

KFloppy supports two file system types for formatting floppy disks: MS-DOS and ext2, the Linux file system. If you want to use the floppy across many different operating systems, the MS-DOS file system is a good choice, but if you only need to use the disk on Linux systems, use ext2.

### Formatting Options

There are two different ways that KFloppy can format a disk.

Quick Erase

  This simply puts the new file system on the disk. All data on the disk is erased. If the density of the disk is different than the selected density for formatting then the tracks and sectors on the disk will be reallocated before the file system is made.

Full Format

  A full format reallocates the tracks and sectors, puts the selected file system on the disk, and then verifies the format, blocking out any bad sectors it finds.

MS-DOS disks can have a volume label, which can be created by checking the Create Label box and typing in the desired volume label. Ext2 formatted floppies cannot have labels.

## Copyright

KFloppy Formatter

Program copyright 1997 Bernd Johannes Wuebben <wuebben@math.cornell.edu>

Documentation copyright 1999 David Rugge <davidrugge@mindspring.com>

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.