format c: /q/u/s What do the q, and u do?

[Sporko]

I know the /s copies the system files to make the disk bootable, but what about /q and /u? And why would I want to use them?

 

[chuckieland]

u mean Ulity
Q mean quick format

 

[Sporko]

Er...ok.

Anyone want to tackle my second question. What does the Utility command do and why wouldn't you want a quick format?

 

[chuckieland]

ok here is what i know, but don't quote me on it. because it's been a long time.
S mean, you tell windows this drive will be system drive, where windows will be install
U mean, ulity, where they put basic boot, Fdisk, formate...etc into it
Q mean quick format
quick format is fast deleted.

if you want to install windows in C: the you formate with /s and /u
/Q won't work on unformated drive, because it just quick deleted.

 

[chuckieland]

just to clear
if you want to install windows in D instead of C:
you your would do this
format C:
then
Format D: /s /u

then install windows on to D:
/s just tell windows this is system drive.

 

[airfoil]

Whoa Chuckie!
You say sporko should do a sys to the d: drive, when C's the boot drive?

 

[fastman]

I thought /u stood for unconditional? If I am wrong, please forgive.

 

[Format C:]

Yall wouldn't talk about a fella's kinfolks behind his back now wouldya?

Sorry, couldn't resist.

 

[cbwolf]

yeh, i thought the /u stood for unconditional aswell...
hmmmm....

 

[FirmPete]

Another confirmation:

q=quick
u=unconditional

/? = help, shows all switches and what they do

 

[MiniMe69]

u doesn't stand for utility...hahaha
everyone else is right...it stands for unconditional.

 

[x0lution]

One of the earlier post said that /s was to designate the system drive... the /s copies the system files to that drive, that doesn't mean that this is where windows has to be installed. like if i did format d: /s then it would just copy the required system files (command.com, io.sys and config.sys) to that drive so that that drive is bootable (though you aren't required to boot from it). It does the same thing as the sys command.

 

[dman]

/U = Unconditional
/Q = Quick

The two are mutually exclusive. I don't know what one takes preference, but, you don't need both. I believe the default is /Q


A "Quick" format just erases the FAT Table so you no longer can see any data on the drive. As you use the drive old data is overwritten. No checking of the sectors is done--that's why it's "Quick".

An "Unconditional" format goes through and tests/clears each sector on the drive (testing for bad blocks along the way). It checks the whole drive and takes a lot longer.

I always use /U on harddrives. If I have any bad blocks I want to know when I'm formatting, not 2months down the road after a bunch of crashes and scandisk tells me there's a bad block.

 

[dman]

Another note, although you can copy the system files to any drive leter (using sys command or format /s) you can only boot a MSDos/Windows from a Drive C: (So no need for system files on any other drive letter).

If you, are for example, going to format another drive ( D: ) on one machine to put into a second machine and boot from, be sure you set (or it was set) the partition as "Active" in FDISK. (But that's a whole 'nother ballgame)

 

[Sporko]

Alright, now we're getting somewhere. Thanks for the responses all.

I understand what the quick command does. But I'm a little unclear what the difference would be with format c:/s and format c:/s/u

What does the u command do that a regular format command doesn't do?

 

[dimsum]

i think the /u tells the computer to format "no matter what" i guess there are times when there is error or somthing that will cause format to stop formating. so you use /u unconditional to by-pass all these error and continue to format.

 

[Usul]

/q is the nearest thing to a low-level format you can get from DOS.
Also, someone said that if you format D with /s, you can install Win there.
Only for NT/2000, 9x and ME installs in C no matter what, and NT/2000 don't care if you used /s anyway

 

[Sporko]

OK, let's see what we have so far.

/u=Ulity, Unconditional, So far dman6666 makes the most sense here.

/s=system (everyone agrees basically)

/q=quick (erases FAT)
= low level format - huh?

It's pretty clear there's a lot of confusion regarding these format commands. Anyone want to take one more stab at it? What does Format c:/u do differently than Format c:

 

[Rendus]

(This is coming from someone who's used DOS since MS-DOS 3.3 was state of the art, and a former Product Specialist (L2) for Dell, who had to explain this all day every day to people).


Format /q /u /s

/q = Quick. Erases the FAT. NOT A LOW LEVEL FORMAT. Low level format erases the MBR, the partition table, everything. A lot of tech support places will refer to this as a debug, as we often use the debug(.exe) command to do this. This is the easiest and quickest way to erase everything on a particular drive.

/u = Unconditional. Useless after DOS 6.22. There used to be a command called unformat that would allow you to undo a format of a floppy, provided it made a backup image of that floppy. The /u switch bypassed the image creation, speeding up the format process. Useless today, but for compatibility with older programs, doesn't complain about it.

/s = Copy system files, write master boot record. Copies command.com, io.sys and msdos.sys from boot medium to the drive being formatted, and makes the destination drive bootable by writing to that drive's master boot record. Same result as the sys command (sys c

-edit because I can't spell-

 

[PC Freak]

Why is it so damn hard to go to the dos prompt and type in format.
it list the attributes and what they do. is this so damn hard.

 

[Sporko]

Thank-you for the explanation Rendus.

And PCFreak, you make want to take a little break.

 

[Rendus]

PC_Freak, please find /u and /s in the following output of Format on a WinME machine:

C:\WINDOWS\Desktop>format /?
Formats a disk for use with MS-DOS.

FORMAT drive: [/V[:label]] [/i] >>

[/F:size] [/C]
FORMAT drive: [/V[:label]] [/i] >>

[/T:tracks /N:sectors] [/C]
FORMAT drive: [/V[:label]] [/i] >>

[/1] [/4] [/C]
FORMAT drive: [/i] >>

[/1] [/4] [/8] [/C]

/V[:label] Specifies the volume label.
/Q Performs a quick format.
/F:size Specifies the size of the floppy disk to format (such
as 160, 180, 320, 360, 720, 1.2, 1.44, 2.88).
/T:tracks Specifies the number of tracks per disk side.
/N:sectors Specifies the number of sectors per track.
/1 Formats a single side of a floppy disk.
/4 Formats a 5.25-inch 360K floppy disk in a high-density drive.
/8 Formats eight sectors per track.
/C Tests clusters that are currently marked "bad."

 

[PC Freak]

Rendus - You can't can't read. Simple as that. Sporko has Win98SE loaded. So nobody's talking about WinME except for you.

Sporko - Sorry, it's my pet peive. Everybody now-a day's is learning everything on Win, and nobody's taking the time to learn the basics, DOS.

 

[Sporko]

Hmmmm, I tried /? and this is what I get:

Microsoft(R) Windows 98
(C)Copyright Microsoft Corp 1981-1999.

C:\WINDOWS>format /?
Formats a disk for use with MS-DOS.

FORMAT drive: [/V[:label]] [/i] >>

[/F:size] [/B | /S] [/C]
FORMAT drive: [/V[:label]] [/i] >>

[/T:tracks /N:sectors] [/B | /S] [/C]
FORMAT drive: [/V[:label]] [/i] >>

[/1] [/4] [/B | /S] [/C]
FORMAT drive: [/i] >>

[/1] [/4] [/8] [/B | /S] [/C]

/V[:label] Specifies the volume label.
/Q Performs a quick format.
/F:size Specifies the size of the floppy disk to format (such
as 160, 180, 320, 360, 720, 1.2, 1.44, 2.88).
/B Allocates space on the formatted disk for system files.
/S Copies system files to the formatted disk.
/T:tracks Specifies the number of tracks per disk side.
/N:sectors Specifies the number of sectors per track.
/1 Formats a single side of a floppy disk.
/4 Formats a 5.25-inch 360K floppy disk in a high-density drive.
/8 Formats eight sectors per track.
/C Tests clusters that are currently marked "bad."

C:\WINDOWS>

I see the /s. I see the /q, but still wouldn't know what a "quick" format was. Nothing about u.

I guess as a casual computer user in 2001 I don't see much use in "learning" DOS. Sort of like I don't need to learn the properties of hydraulics to fix my dripping tap. Besides, when a question does arrive, I can find the answer at the Technical Support forum.

 

[Rendus]

PC_Freak: The only difference in the format command between WinME and Win98SE is the /s switch is no longer an option.



<< &quot;Rendus - You can't can't read. Simple as that. Sporko has Win98SE loaded. So nobody's talking about WinME except for you.&quot; >>



Pot, kettle, black. Don't criticize someone's reading ability when, in the same breath, you screw up yourself.