The Format Command

Format is a Microsoft DOS command. It's a command line you can run to remove information from a computer disk, floppy disk or hard disk. It is an external command found in many of the Windows Operating systems. Hard drive formatting is done in three steps:

(1) Low-level formatting creates the physical structure on the hard drive. Partitioning divides the hard drive into logical pieces that become volumes. High-level formatting defines the logical structures on the partition and places at the start of the disk any necessary operating system files.

The format command syntax is the following:

FORMAT drive: [/parameters]

- where drive: specifies the volume to format (the hard disk letter followed by a colon) — example format c:

— where [parameters] formats the disk with different options — example format c: /s will copy system files to the formatted disk or format c: /q performs a quick format.

The syntax used between Windows 95, 98 and ME differ slightly from Windows 2000 and XP. To see the available Format command parameters for your operating system, you can type FORMAT /? at the DOS command line.