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From: jnw@mcnc.UUCP (John White)
Newsgroups: net.wanted.sources,net.micro.pc
Subject: Re: A floppy-only MS-DOS formatter?
Message-ID: <655@mcnc.mcnc.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 26-Jul-85 21:08:07 EDT
Article-I.D.: mcnc.655
Posted: Fri Jul 26 21:08:07 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 28-Jul-85 09:16:33 EDT
References: <438@moncol.UUCP>
Organization: Microelectronics Center of NC; RTP, NC
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Xref: linus net.wanted.sources:1106 net.micro.pc:4435

> Does anyone, therefore, have or know of a utility which will only allow
> drive A: (and B: ?) to be formatted?

     You can rename the format command and/or hide it in a subdirectory.
Then, write a format.bat file that does "format a:" using the real format
and always passing it an argument. By adding lines like "if x%1==xb: goto do_b"
you can format other drives. After the drive specifier you can put
"%1 %2 %3 %4 %5" so arguments like /s will be passed.
     For example, if format is renamed to hdformat then format.bat might
look like:

if x%1==xa: goto do_a
if x%1==xb: goto do_b
hd%0 a: %1 %2 %3 %4 %5
goto stop
:do_a
hd%0 a: %2 %3 %4 %5
goto stop
:do_b
hd%0 b: %2 %3 %4 %5
:stop

     I haven't tested this so beware, but you get the general idea.
Note that %0 is used so "format/s" will work. "format b: /s" will
also work, but "format b:/s" will not. Hope this helps.
- John N. White <mcnc!jnw>