hformat - create a new HFS filesystem and make it current
SYNOPSIS
hformat [-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 speci-
fied. The destination may be either a block device or a
regular file, but must already exist and be writable. (If
a regular file, the size of the file determines the maxi-
mum size of the resulting volume image.)
An optional label can be specified to name the volume. The
name must be between 1-27 characters and cannot contain a
colon (:). By default, the volume will be named Untitled.
If a partition number n is specified, the nth HFS parti-
tion in the existing medium will receive the filesystem.
By default, and also when n is 0, the entire medium
(entire file or entire block device) will be formatted
with the new filesystem. If a partition is specified, it
must already exist.
The new volume will be empty, but will also become "cur-
rent" so subsequent commands will refer to it. The current
working directory for the volume is set to the root of the
volume.
EXAMPLES
% dd if=/dev/zero of=disk.hfs bs=1k count=800
% hformat disk.hfs
This sequence creates an 800K HFS volume image in
the file disk.hfs in the current directory, and
names it Untitled.
% hformat /dev/fd0
If a floppy disk is available as /dev/fd0, this
formats the disk to its maximum capacity as an HFS
volume named Untitled. (N.B. The floppy must
already have received a low-level format by other
means.)
% hformat -l "Loma Prieta" /dev/sd2 1
If a SCSI disk is available as /dev/sd2, this ini-
tializes the first HFS partition on the disk (which
must already exist) with a new filesystem, naming
the resulting volume Loma Prieta.
NOTES
The smallest volume size which can be formatted with hfor-
hfsutils(1), hmount(1)
FILES
$HOME/.hcwd
AUTHOR
Robert Leslie <rob@mars.org>