I thought /U was "unconditional", meaning that you cannot later reverse the formatting and recover the previous data. Without /U, FORMAT would save a hidden copy of the FAT (or something like that), IIRC, making it easier to recover from the format. My MS-DOS 5.0 manual says that with the /U, FORMAT "Destroys all existing data on a disk", whatever that means.
Bob
-----Original Message-----
From: Fred Cisin [mailto:cisin_at_xenosoft.com]
Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2003 5:16 PM
To: cctalk_at_classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: Low Level Format
<snip>
If /U is active, then it at least "VERIFIES" every cluster.
<snip>
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin_at_xenosoft.com
Received on Mon Aug 25 2003 - 08:26:01 BST