{{Lowercase title|title=fdformat}} {{Use dmy dates|date=January 2022|cs1-dates=y}} {{Use list-defined references|date=January 2022}} '''Fdformat''' is the name of two unrelated programs, both performing "low-level format" of floppy disks.
== DOS tool == FDFORMAT is written by Christoph H. Hochstätter in Pascal. It allows users to format a floppy to a higher than usual density, enabling the user to store up to 300 kilobytes more data on a normal high density 3.5" floppy disk. It also increases the speed of diskette I/O on these specially formatted disks using a technique called "Sector Sliding". In this technique, the physical sectors on the disk are ordered in such a way that when the drive advances to the next track, the next logical sector waiting to be read is immediately available to the read head.
== Linux tool == The Linux fdformat program works with the kernel floppy driver. It simply formats a floppy disk using whatever parameters is already known to the system.<ref>{{man|8|fdformat|Linux}}</ref> The {{code|setfdprm}} can be used to provide the system with unusual formatting parameters with which to format.<ref>{{man|8|setfdprm|Linux}}</ref>
Functionality similar to Hochstätter's FDFORMAT is provided by fdutils, written by Alain Knaff.<ref>{{cite web |title=Fdutils - Linux floppy tuning utilities |url=https://fdutils.linux.lu/}}</ref>
== See also == * DMF, a high-density diskette format used by Microsoft * VGA-Copy, a similar program that allowed higher floppy disk capacity * XDF, a high-density diskette format used by IBM
==References== {{Reflist}}
== External links == * [http://ftp.sunet.se/mirror/archive/ftp.sunet.se/pub/simtelnet/msdos/diskutil/fdfrm18.zip FTP for the DOS tool, version 1.8, compiled .exe and Pascal sources] * [https://github.com/christoh/fdformat GitHub christoh/fdformat]
Category:Floppy disk computer storage Category:Linux file system-related software {{storage-software-stub}}