ufiformat(8)

🎀 ufiformat — the USB floppy glow-up page 🎀

ok so bestie, welcome to ufiformat(8) from the System Manager's Manual 💖 this is the tool that gives your dusty lil USB floppy disk a whole new life. raw format energy only. let's go 🦋

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✨ NAME ✨

ufiformat — Format a USB floppy disk. that's it, that's the whole job, and she does it flawlessly 💅

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

ufiformat [ -hiqvV ] [ -f|--format [size]] [ devicepath ]

like, look at her. so compact. so powerful. devicepath is optional and honestly she'll figure it out 😌

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✨ OPTIONS ✨

• -f, --format [size] — tell her the format capacity you want, SIZE in KB. no -f? then she just uses whatever format the current media is already rocking. lowkey convenient fr fr ✨
• -V, --verify — double-checks the medium after formatting, like a vibe check for your data 🫶 only meaningful when you're not using the -i option, just so u know.
• -F, --force — skips ALL the safety checks. no net, no helmet, no cap 🚨 do not be casual about this one bestie.
• -i, --inquire — shows you the device info instead of formatting anything. and if you don't give her a devicepath argument? she lists every single USB floppy disk device attached to the system. main character roll call 👑
• -v, --verbose — be verbose. she will simply tell you more things 💬
• -q, --quiet — suppress the minor diagnostics. she's being demure, she's being mindful 🙈
• -h, --help — shows the help message. the classic. the icon 🌈

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

okay so. ufiformat is a raw level formatting disk utility for USB floppy devices 💾

now let's talk about what "raw level format" actually means, because it is NOT what you think it is. raw level format writes gap, index, sectors to the unformatted disk using special commands that are specific to the disk controller — the whole point is turning that plain magneto-sensitive film into an actual sector-addressable medium. it's giving ✨material girl✨

🚨 IMPORTANT: raw level format is NOT about creating filesystems (fs(5)) on the disk. different thing entirely, don't mix them up bestie.

after the mid-1990's, floppy disks are sold generally pre-formatted in MS-DOS 2HD format: 80 cylinder, 2 heads, 18 sectors/track, 512 bytes/sector. so like, raw formatting is seldom needed. BUT — and this is the tea ☕ — raw formatting could cure some disk and drive mismatchings. sometimes the relationship just needs a hard reset 💔➡️💖

⚠️ WARNING: You will NOT raw format an LS-120 disks or (removable) hard disks; they are precision formatted in factory and cannot be raw reformatted. periodt. do not try it. she said what she said.

ufiformat supports only the following format capacities:

1440/1232/1200 (for 2HD disk)
720/640        (for 2DD disk)

the device should support the capacities too, otherwise ufiformat shows an error message 😭 it's a two-way street, no cap.

the above format capacities are predefined in the program, but each USB floppy device also has a limited set of formats (defined internally) that it can format media to. the allowed format capacities are obtained by querying (-i) the device, but this only returns the total format capacity and not CHS (cylinder, heads and sectors), hence a mapping is required in the program. iykyk 🧠✨

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✨ EXAMPLES ✨

Inquiry the device for available format:

# modprobe sg
# ufiformat -i /dev/sda
vendor:  Y-E DATA
product: USB-FDU
write protect: off
media type: 2HD
status      block size   kb
formatted    2880  512 1440
formattable  2880  512 1440
formattable  1232 1024 1232
formattable  2400  512 1200

look at all those formattable rows bestie, she's thriving 🌸

Format the floppy disk in 1.44MB, and create a FAT filesystem:

# ufiformat -f 1440 /dev/sda
# mkdosfs -I /dev/sda

two commands. that's the whole arc. ate 💅🔥

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✨ PREREQUISTES ✨

ufiformat needs /dev/sg* SCSI pass-thru device to operate 🫶 if the device does not exist, add the driver by invoking modprobe sg.

and yeah — you often need to be root to do anything with /dev/sd*. it's giving permission slip energy 👑

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✨ SEE ALSO ✨

• fdformat(8)
• floppy(8)
• sg(4)

and also, for the lore girlies 📚:

"Universal Serial Bus Mass Storage Class - UFI Command Specification" Revision 1.0 December 14 1998 http://www.usb.org/developers/devclass_docs/usbmass-ufi10.pdf

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and that's the whole page!! this was ufiformat(8) from the System Manager's Manual, and honestly? iconic 💖 go format something (safely, bestie, don't use -F unless you mean it 😭) 🌈✨🎀🦋💜