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HFORMAT(1)		     General Commands Manual		      HFORMAT(1)

NAME
     hformat - create a new HFS filesystem and make it current

SYNOPSIS
     hformat [-f] [-l label] destination-path [partition-no]

DESCRIPTION
     hformat  is used to write a new HFS filesystem to a volume. A UNIX pathname
     to the volume's destination must be specified. The destination may  be  ei-
     ther  a  block  device  or a regular file, but it must already exist and be
     writable.

     An optional label can be specified to name the volume. The name must be be-
     tween 1-27 characters and cannot contain a colon (:). By default, the  vol-
     ume will be named Untitled.

     If the destination medium is partitioned, one partition must be selected to
     receive  the  filesystem. If there is only one HFS partition on the medium,
     it will be selected by default. Otherwise,  the  desired  partition  number
     must  be  specified (as the ordinal nth HFS partition) on the command-line.
     The size of the partition determines the size of the resulting volume.

     Partition number 0 can be specified to format the entire medium as a single
     filesystem without a partition map, erasing any existing partition informa-
     tion. Since this will destroy all the partitions, the  -f	option	must  be
     specified to force this operation if the medium currently contains a parti-
     tion map.

     If the medium is not partitioned (or if partition 0 is specified), the size
     or capacity of the medium determines the size of the resulting volume.

     The  new  volume will be empty and will become "current" so subsequent com-
     mands will refer to it. The current working directory for the volume is set
     to the root of the volume.

EXAMPLES
     % hformat /dev/fd0
	    If a floppy disk is available as /dev/fd0, this formats the disk  as
	    an	HFS  volume  named Untitled.  (N.B. The floppy must already have
	    received a low-level format by other means.)

     % dd if=/dev/zero of=disk.hfs bs=1k count=800
     % hformat -l "Test Disk" disk.hfs
	    This sequence creates an 800K HFS volume image in the file	disk.hfs
	    in the current directory, and names it Test Disk.

     % hformat -l "Loma Prieta" /dev/sd2 1
	    If	a SCSI disk is available as /dev/sd2, this initializes the first
	    HFS partition on the disk (which must  already  exist)  with  a  new
	    filesystem, naming the resulting volume Loma Prieta.

     % hformat -f /dev/sd2 0
	    This causes the medium accessible as /dev/sd2 to be reformatted as a
	    single  HFS  volume, ignoring and erasing any existing partition in-
	    formation on the medium. The -f option  must  be  specified  if  the
	    medium is currently partitioned; otherwise the command will fail.

NOTES
     This command does not create or alter partition maps, although it can erase
     them  (as	described  above). Any partition number specified on the command
     line must already exist.

     The smallest volume size which can be formatted with hformat is 800K.

SEE ALSO
     hfsutils(1), hmount(1)

FILES
     $HOME/.hcwd

AUTHOR
     Robert Leslie <rob@mars.org>

HFSUTILS			   08-Nov-1997			      HFORMAT(1)

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