OT Disk utility

[James.Cass at sealedair.com]

Guys -

I found this on the Mac OS X Hints Forum.  Although the poster says this 
came from the "Apple Knowledge Base" I couldn't find it there, so try this 
with caution.  I don't have any unformatted floppies, so I can't try it.

 --------  BEGIN SNIPPET FROM: 
http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=15882&highlight=format+floppy 
 ------------------
 From an Apple KnowledgeBase Document:

Floppy disks are too small to allow Mac OS Extended format, which requires 
at least a 4 MB disk. To correct the issue, reformat the disk as Mac OS 
Standard, Unix File System, or MS-DOS File System.
 ---------------------------

 If this does not work, it might be possible to format it from the 
Terminal. Be very careful when doing this. You might wait for verification 
from another before trying this, especially in 3 and 4.

 1) Insert the floppy into your 3rd party USB floppy drive (which you are 
no doubt using since you mentioned iMacs and eMacs). 
 2) Open the Terminal and type 
 diskutil list

 Sample output:
 ------
 diskutil list
 /dev/disk0
 #: type name size identifier
 0: Apple_partition_scheme *38.2 GB disk0
 1: Apple_partition_map 31.5 KB disk0s1
 2: Apple_Driver43 27.0 KB disk0s2
 3: Apple_Driver43 37.0 KB disk0s3
 4: Apple_Driver_ATA 27.0 KB disk0s4
 5: Apple_Driver_ATA 37.0 KB disk0s5
 6: Apple_FWDriver 100.0 KB disk0s6
 7: Apple_Driver_IOKit 256.0 KB disk0s7
 8: Apple_Patches 256.0 KB disk0s8
 9: Apple_HFS lebesgue 31.1 GB disk0s9
 10: Apple_HFS Archive 7.1 GB disk0s10
 /dev/disk2
 #: type name size identifier
 0: PUBLIC *122.6 MB disk2
 1: PUBLIC 122.6 MB disk2
 ---------

 PUBLIC is my USB flash drive. Your USB floppy will probably show up in a 
similar way.

 3) If the floppy drive is not yet unmounted, then do so, by typing

 diskutil unmount /dev/disk2

 4) Now format the floppy by typing

 newfs_hfs -h -v DesiredNameOfFloppy /dev/disk2


 [Edited to say that, if this works, all you'd have to do each time is to 
do steps 3 and 4. One ought to be able to write a shell script or perhaps 
and AppleScript to do it???]

 [By the way, this worked on my USB flash drive.]
 Last edited by macmath : 10-09-2003 at 04:06 PM. 
 --------  END SNIPPET FROM: 
http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=15882&highlight=format+floppy 
 ------------------





Andre Garzia <soapdog at mac.com>
Sent by: use-revolution-bounces at lists.runrev.com
09/27/04 11:41 AM
Please respond to How to use Revolution
 
        To:     How to use Revolution <use-revolution at lists.runrev.com>
        cc: 
        Subject:        Re: OT Disk utility


David,


guess what, I am with 10.3.5 and just stumbled with the same problem
while making a plan9 bootdisk... hell!!!!

I can't erase my disk and reformat it...

sigh
andre

On Sep 27, 2004, at 4:30 PM, David Squance wrote:

> Hi,
> Sorry to bug the list about this, but I want to reformat a floppy for
> a new
> version of a little app (don't need the engine), and the disk utility
> just
> sits there when I try to erase a disk.  I have some which are Mac
> formatted, and want PC format.  The disk utility should do this,
> n'est-ce
> pas?
>
> I'm using OS10.3.5, and I've tried using the utility from my install
> CD,
> and that's no different.  Can someone give me a suggestion as to where
> I
> can get a working copy of this (or a better) utility for this purpose?
>  I
> tried Apple's site, but didn't find what I was looking for.
> Thanks,
> Dave
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> use-revolution mailing list
> use-revolution at lists.runrev.com
> http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
>
>
--
Andre Alves Garzia ? 2004 ? BRAZIL
http://studio.soapdog.org

_______________________________________________
use-revolution mailing list
use-revolution at lists.runrev.com
http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution