FAT32 file systems restrict the number of clusters to between 655917. To format the hard disk, press Y if you do not want to format the disk, press N.įAT file systems restrict the number of clusters to no more than 65526. When you use the format command to format a hard disk, a warning message similar to the following displays: WARNING, ALL DATA ON NON-REMOVABLE DISK If you do not want to add a volume label to the disk, press ENTER. To add a volume label, type up to 11 characters (including spaces). Volume label (11 characters, ENTER for none)? To be able to use a new disk, you must first use this command to format the disk.Īfter formatting a floppy disk, format displays the following message: It can also check for bad areas on the disk, and it can delete all data on the disk. The format command creates a new root directory and file system for the disk. If the spotfix flag for chkdsk is specified (i.e. Zero indicates the default value, which generally depends on the volume size. The minimum supported size is 2MB, so specifying a size smaller than 2MB will result in a 2MB log file. NTFS only Specifies the size for NTFS log file in kilobytes. DAX is considered the same as /DAX:enable. A volume can be formatted with DAX mode only if the hardware is DAX capable. In DAX mode, the volume is accessed via the memory bus, boosting IO performance. Enable direct access storage (DAX) mode for this volume. Integrity is enabled on storage that supports data redundancy by default. Specifies whether integrity should be enabled on the new volume. L and /L:enable forces format to use large size file records and /L:disable forces format to use small size file records. By default, a non-tiered volume will be formatted with small size file records and a tiered volume will be formatted with large size file records.
Overrides the default size of file record. Any open handles to the volume will no longer be valid. Files created on the new volume will be compressed by default.įorces the volume to dismount, if necessary, before it's formatted. This switch is ignored when /Q is specified. If count is zero, no additional overwrites are made after zeroing every sector. After that, the volume will be overwritten count times using a different random number each time. This option is not valid with the /F option. These two options together provide an alternative method of specifying the size of the disk that is being formatted. When possible, use the /F command-line option instead of /N.
Specifies the number of sectors per track. These options together provide an alternative method of specifying the size of the disk that is being formatted. If you use the /T option, you must also use the /N option. When possible, use the /F command-line option instead. Specifies the number of tracks on the disk.