DOS feature on formatting disk

From: Jim Leonard <trixter_at_oldskool.org>
Date: Tue Jan 18 14:28:53 2005

Dan Williams wrote:
> In MSDOS the /u doesn't actually mean unconditional in the normal
> sense. It means do not save unformat information, it will still stop
> if it gets errors.

That's incorrect; /u really does mean an "unconditional" format in the sense
that it will format/write and then verify a track. If you omit /u, format
merely tests each track for readability, with no actual formatting happening.
Try it yourself; even without an int 13 monitor you can time it with a
stopwatch to see that omitting /u takes significantly longer.
-- 
Jim Leonard (trixter_at_oldskool.org)                    http://www.oldskool.org/
Want to help an ambitious games project?             http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at             http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
Received on Tue Jan 18 2005 - 14:28:53 GMT

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