UPGRADING REPAIRING PCs

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Chapter 4—SCSI and IDE Hard Drives and Optical Drives
High-Level (DOS) Format
The final step in the installation of a hard disk drive is the highlevel
format. Similar to the partitioning process, the high-level format
is specific to the file system you’ve chosen to use on the drive.
On Windows 9x/Me/NT/2000 and DOS systems, the primary function
of the high-level format is to create a FAT and directory system
on the disk so the operating system can manage files. You must run
FDISK before formatting a drive. Each drive letter created by FDISK
must be formatted before it can be used for data storage. This
process might be automated with setup programs for some operating
systems, such as Windows 9x retail versions. In the following
notes, I provide the steps for a manual drive preparation in which
you’ll install a full operating system copy later.
Usually, you perform the high-level format with the FORMAT.COM
program or the formatting utility in Windows 9x/Me Explorer.
FORMAT.COM uses the following syntax:
FORMAT C: /S /V
This high-level command formats drive C:, writes the hidden operating
system files in the first part of the partition (/S), and prompts
for the entry of a volume label (/V) to be stored on the disk at the
completion of the process.
The FAT high-level format program performs the following functions
and procedures:
1. Scans the disk (read only) for tracks and sectors marked as bad
during the LLF and notes these tracks as being unreadable.
2. Returns the drive heads to the first cylinder of the partition
and at that cylinder (Head 1, Sector 1), it writes a DOS volume
boot sector.
3. Writes a FAT at Head 1, Sector 2. Immediately after this FAT, it
writes a second copy of the FAT. These FATs essentially are
blank except for bad-cluster marks noting areas of the disk that
were found to be unreadable during the marked-defect scan.
4. Writes a blank root directory.
5. If the /S parameter is specified, copies the system files,
IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS (or IBMBIO.COM and
IBMDOS.COM, depending on which DOS you run) and
COMMAND.COM to the disk (in that order).
6. If the /V parameter is specified, prompts the user for a volume
label, which is written as the fourth file entry in the
root directory.