| FORMAT(8) | System Manager's Manual (vax) | FORMAT(8) | 
format —
format program. The alternative is to use the DEC
  standard formatting software which operates under the DEC diagnostic
  supervisor. This manual page describes the operation of
  format, then concludes with some remarks about using
  the DEC formatter.
format is a standalone program used to
    format and check disks prior to constructing file systems. In addition to
    the formatting operation, format records any bad
    sectors encountered according to DEC standard 144. Formatting is performed
    one track at a time by writing the appropriate headers and a test pattern
    and then checking the sector by reading and verifying the pattern, using the
    controller's ECC for error detection. A sector is marked bad if an
    unrecoverable media error is detected, or if a correctable ECC error too
    many bits in length is detected (such errors are indicated as
    “ECC” in the summary printed upon completing the format
    operation). After the entire disk has been formatted and checked, the total
    number of errors are reported, any bad sectors and skip sectors are marked,
    and a bad sector forwarding table is written to the disk in the first five
    even numbered sectors of the last track. It is also possible to reformat
    sections of the disk in units of tracks. format may
    be used on any UNIBUS or MASSBUS drive supported by the up
    and hp device drivers which uses 4-byte headers
    (everything except RP's).
The test pattern used during the media check may be selected from one of: 0xf00f (RH750 worst case), 0xec6d (media worst case), and 0xa5a5 (alternating 1's and 0's). Normally the media worst case pattern is used.
format also has an option to perform an
    extended “severe burn-in”, which makes a number of passes
    using different patterns. The number of passes can be selected at run time,
    up to a maximum of 48, with provision for additional passes or termination
    after the preselected number of passes. This test runs for many hours,
    depending on the disk and processor.
Each time format is run to format an
    entire disk, a completely new bad sector table is generated based on errors
    encountered while formatting. The device driver, however, will always
    attempt to read any existing bad sector table when the device is first
    opened. Thus, if a disk pack has never previously been formatted, or has
    been formatted with different sectoring, five error messages will be printed
    when the driver attempts to read the bad sector table; these diagnostics
    should be ignored.
Formatting a 400 megabyte disk on a MASSBUS disk controller
    usually takes about 20 minutes. Formatting on a UNIBUS disk controller takes
    significantly longer. For every hundredth cylinder formatted
    format prints a message indicating the current
    cylinder being formatted. (This message is just to reassure people that
    nothing is amiss.)
format uses the standard notation of the
    standalone I/O library in identifying a drive to be formatted. A drive is
    specified as zz(x,y), where zz refers to
    the controller type (either hp or up),
    x is the unit number of the drive; 8 times the UNIBUS or
    MASSBUS adaptor number plus the MASSBUS drive number or UNIBUS drive unit
    number; and y is the file system partition on drive
    x (this should always be 0). For example,
    “hp(1,0)” indicates that drive 1 on MASSBUS adaptor 0 should
    be formatted; while “up(10,0)” indicates that UNIBUS drive 2
    on UNIBUS adaptor 1 should be formatted.
Before each formatting attempt, format
    prompts the user in case debugging should be enabled in the appropriate
    device driver. A carriage return disables debugging information.
format should be used prior to building
    file systems (with newfs(8)
    to ensure that all sectors with uncorrectable media errors are remapped. If
    a drive develops uncorrectable defects after formatting, either
    bad144(8) or
    badsect(8) should be able
    to avoid the bad sectors.
format is shown below. In this example
  (using a VAX-11/780), format is loaded from the
  console floppy; on an 11/750 format will be loaded
  from the root file system with
  vax/boot(8) following a
  “B/3” command. Boldface means user input. As usual,
  “#” and “@” may be used to edit input.
>>>L FORMAT LOAD DONE, 00004400 BYTES LOADED >>>S 2 Disk format/check utility Enable debugging (0=none, 1=bse, 2=ecc, 3=bse+ecc)? 0 Device to format? hp(8,0) (error messages may occur as old bad sector table is read) Formatting drive hp0 on adaptor 1: verify (yes/no)? yes Device data: #cylinders=842, #tracks=20, #sectors=48 Starting cylinder (0): Starting track (0): Ending cylinder (841): Ending track (19): Available test patterns are:
1 - (f00f) RH750 worst case 2 - (ec6d) media worst case 3 - (a5a5) alternating 1's and 0's 4 - (ffff) Severe burnin (up to 48 passes)
Pattern (one of the above, other to restart)? 2 Maximum number of bit errors to allow for soft ECC (3): Start formatting...make sure the drive is online ... (soft ecc's and other errors are reported as they occur) ... (if 4 write check errors were found, the program terminates like this...) ... Errors: Bad sector: 0 Write check: 4 Hard ECC: 0 Other hard: 0 Marked bad: 0 Skipped: 0 Total of 4 hard errors revectored. Writing bad sector table at block 808272 (808272 is the block # of the first block in the bad sector table) Done (...program restarts to allow formatting other disks) (...to abort halt machine with ^P)
The formatting procedures are different for each type of disk. Listed here are the formatting procedures for RK07's, RP0X, and RM0X disks.
You should shut down UNIX and halt the machine to do any disk formatting. Make certain you put in the pack you want formatted. It is also a good idea to spin down or write protect the disks you don't want to format, just in case.
>>>BOOT DIAGNOSTIC SUPERVISOR. ZZ-ESSAA-X5.0-119 23-JAN-1980 12:44:40.03 DS>ATTACH DW780 SBI DW0 3 5 DS>ATTACH RK611 DMA DS>ATTACH RK07 DW0 DMA0 DS>SELECT DMA0 DS>LOAD EVRAC DS>START/SEC:PACKINIT
DS>ATTACH RH780 SBI RH0 8 5 DS>ATTACH RP0X RH0 DBA0 (RP0X is, e.g., RP06) DS>SELECT DBA0
This is for drive 0 on mba0; use 9 instead of 8 for mba1, etc.
DS>ATTACH RH780 SBI RH0 8 5 DS>ATTACH RM0X RH0 DRA0 DS>SELECT DRA0
Don't forget to put your UNIX console floppy back in the floppy disk drive.
It should be possible to reformat or verify part or all of a disk, then update the existing bad sector table.
| February 17, 2017 | NetBSD 10.1 |