mlabel(1)

🌸 NAME 🌸

okay bestie, so mlabel — it makes an MS-DOS volume label 💅 that's literally the whole gig. she's a section 1 (General Commands Manual) girlie, so she's a command you run, not a function you call. no cap.

---

⚠️ Note of warning ⚠️

okay so real talk for a sec 🙈 this manpage was automatically generated from mtools's texinfo documentation, which means it might not be entirely accurate or complete. it's giving "made by a script, not a person." see the end of this man page for the details, bestie.

---

✨ Description ✨

so like, the mlabel command adds a volume label to a disk 🎀 its syntax is:

mlabel [-vcsn] [-N serial] drive:[new_label]

Mlabel displays the current volume label, if present 👀 if new_label is not given, and if neither the c nor the s options are set, it prompts the user for a new volume label. and if you want to delete an existing volume label? just press return at the prompt. iconic. bye label 💀

the label is limited to 11 single-byte characters, e.g. Name1234567. that's the cap, no exceptions.

reasonable care is taken to create a valid MS-DOS volume label 🌈 if an invalid label is specified, mlabel changes the label (and displays the new label if the verbose mode is set). Mlabel returns 0 on success or 1 on failure.

Mlabel supports the following options:

• c — Clears an existing label, without prompting the user. no questions asked, just gone ✨
• s — Shows the existing label, without prompting the user. it's giving "just let me look" 👑
• n — Assigns a new (random) serial number to the disk 🎲
• N serial — Sets the supplied serial number. the serial number should be supplied as an 8 digit hexadecimal number, without spaces — so like 1A2B3C4D vibes, no lil gaps pls.

---

💜 See Also 💜

• Mtools' texinfo doc 📖

---

🦋 Viewing the texi doc 🦋

okay so this manpage has been automatically generated from mtools's texinfo documentation 😭 but here's the tea: this process is only approximative, and some items — like crossreferences, footnotes and indices — are lost in this translation process. indeed, these items have no appropriate representation in the manpage format 🙈 moreover, not all information has been translated into the manpage version. so like, I strongly advise you to use the original texinfo doc. see the end of this manpage for instructions how to view the texinfo doc 💅

• To generate a printable copy from the texinfo doc, run the following commands:

./configure; make dvi; dvips mtools.dvi

• To generate a html copy, run:

./configure; make html

a premade html can be found at http://www.gnu.org/software/mtools/manual/mtools.html 🌐

• To generate an info copy (browsable using emacs' info mode), run:

./configure; make info

the texinfo doc looks most pretty when printed or as html ✨ indeed, in the info version certain examples are difficult to read due to the quoting conventions used in info. so yeah, print it or html it, bestie 🫶

---

fr fr, that's the whole page — no secrets, no hidden flags, everything's up there 💖

and that's a wrap, babe 🎀 this lil page came to you straight from mtools-4.0.49, dated 14Jun25, and it's the mlabel(1) manpage herself. go forth and label those disks, you absolute main character 👑💅