i calld you ovet the holidays you never answered you dork…
[quote=“alistair”]Perhaps pre DOS 3 what you say about unformat is true, but this is not something I’ve even heard of. I was able to find an UNFORMAT command, but it uses the mirror system. It is for DOS 5 and later.
Savvy?[/quote]
This is exactly what I was talking about.
Because you didn’t realize that /q /u was so common, you’re basically showing your age 
It’s not something you’ve heard about, because you’ve never really used it.
Using /u would remove the unformat information.
Unformat existed in DOS 5 - 6.22. Using /U when formatting made it impossible to unformat. You could certainly use /Q /U, and it was actually recommended. If you used /Q by itself, it would be slower than /Q /U, since you’d be storing unformat information with just /Q.
/Q /U was the quickest way possible to format a disk on the command line.
Also, re-read what I said: /U means unconditional, which means don’t record the unformat information. Basically makes a disk “un-unformattable”.
Here’s what you’re looking for:
2dos.homepage.dk/batutil/help/FORMAT_S.HTM
and…
So, /q /u was certainly possible, and quite frankly, the preferred method of formatting a disk quickly. If you just used /q by itself, it would be slower than /q /u
i never argue with alistair he is always right. SHHHH!!!
Angus taughtme format c: /s /q /u
Well, I dunno how old you were in 1993, Alistair, but that’s when DOS 6 was out. And the /q /u had been pretty common place since DOS 5, two years earlier. I was in my third year of university at the time. I did a lot of formatting. Trust me, /q /u was the quickest possible format.
Jason, adding /s to the line would actually be slower, since it means copy the system files.
Again, I don’t think /u even exists anymore, does it?
If by /s, you mean /Solly’s, then I’d be all over it.
[quote=“MiG”]http://hackingthemainframe.com/coppermine/albums/userpics/10002/format.jpg
[/quote]
That doesn’t exactly prove anything as FORMAT post windows doesn’t use /u, so it’s just ignoring it.
So You Formatted That Disk For Nothing! NOTHING!!!
Anyway, go pull out a DOS 5 boot disk and a small HD, see what happens. You’ll find that if you use /u /q it will just unconditional format.
[quote=“MiG”]Well, I dunno how old you were in 1993, Alistair, but that’s when DOS 6 was out. And the /q /u had been pretty common place since DOS 5, two years earlier. I was in my third year of university at the time. I did a lot of formatting. Trust me, /q /u was the quickest possible format.
[/quote]
That’s all fine, but I can’t find anything, anywhere that confirms this. What I did find is that you can’t unformat when you use /u cause there’s nothing left to unformat. I found that you can unformat after /q but that’s only because you can only /q on a disk that is already formatted and you’re only dealing with one file system type. Files would be recovereable until they’re overwritten. I can’t find anything that shows (including my own experience) that say /q make /u faster.
Again, you said
“/u makes /q redundant”
That’s wrong, it doesn’t.
You said
“/u overrides /q”
that’s wrong too.
You said “I can’t find anything that shows (including my own experience) that say /q make /u faster.”
Which is backwards, which is what I’ve been saying all along. /u makes /q faster, on DOS 5 - 6.22.
So pretty much everything you’ve said is false.
I think what you don’t understand is that when you did a simple format /q in DOS, it would actually take a quick snapshot or “mirror” of the FAT and bootsector, in case you decided to unformat later. This would take a few seconds. Doing format /q /u would skip this step.
When working on a windows 9x box i still use format c: /s /q /u and i never have any problems so i just use it as habbit even if it doesn’t work well i just use it. : O )
Ok, do you want to put some money on this Allistair?
I’ve just dug up a DOS 5 boot disk, and I’m about to format a 2 gig drive.
I’m going to do:
format c:
format c: /u
format c: /q
format c: /q /u
which do you think will be faster?
Ok, first off, here’s the format command:
format /?
just to see the swtiches. We’re concerned with /Q and /U
http://hackingthemainframe.com/coppermine/albums/userpics/10002/format1.jpg
Now we’ll just do a normal format.
format c:
http://hackingthemainframe.com/coppermine/albums/userpics/10002/format_c_1.jpg
Notice the “Saving UNFORMAT information”.
The format took about 20 seconds on my system, but I don’t have a stopwatch.
Now we’ll do an unconditional format
format c: /u
http://hackingthemainframe.com/coppermine/albums/userpics/10002/format_u_1.jpg
Notice no “Saving UNFORMAT information” on this one, and it takes a slight bit longer, I think, but again, not sure. Maybe 20 seconds or so. It might be verifying or checking the reported bad sectors, etc.
Now we’ll just do a quick format
format c: /q
http://hackingthemainframe.com/coppermine/albums/userpics/10002/format_q.jpg
Notice the “Saving UNFORMAT information”.
This took about 3-4 seconds, with a pause while it was doing “Saving UNFORMAT information.”
And finally, the one we’ve been waiting for:
format c: /q /u
http://hackingthemainframe.com/coppermine/albums/userpics/10002/format_q_u.jpg
Notice no “Saving UNFORMAT information” on this. And it doesn’t go through the sectors, it does exactly what it was told – “QuickFormatting 1997.28M” unconditionally. This takes less than a second.
Soooo… You’re wrong on all counts.
OK, I’ll bet you five bucks.
Under DOS 5:
format c:
format c: /u
format c: /q /u
Will all be the same speed.
format c: /q will be the fastest, but will only work if the drive already has been formatted using format c: or format c: /u. DOS 5 and up, unconditional is default.
The only thing I don’t know for sure is if you go format c: /q /u on a drive that is already formatted whether it will quick or unconditional, but I bet unconditional. On a drive not formatted, defiantly unconditional.
Ok, dude, you owe me 5 bucks. /q /u was the fastest, since it didn’t do “saving unformat information”
If you’d like to see it in person, drop over Just bring your 5 bucks.
format c: /u
seemed the slowest, probably because it was doing some sector checking.
format c:
was a bit slower, though it did pause at the “saving unformat information” line. hard to tell if it was any different than format c: /u
format c: /q
was pretty quick, 2 or 3 seconds, but a pause at the “saving unformat information”
format c: /q /u
was the fastest, since it didn’t pause at the “saving unformat information” line.
That was way too quick
So you still stick by your earlier statements about which would be quicker?
If so, seriously, drop over here and I’ll show you in person. Or wait… maybe a video clip? Great idea! Need an excuse to use this camera.
Or if you’d like, I’ll send you a DOS boot disk image and you can try it yourself.
Screenshots:
Fine, I concede until further notice. More investigation is required.
Ok, video clip from the S500 (see Smartass, you should get one of these!). Actually two clips pasted together, since it only allows 30 second clips at 640x480 (longer on lower resolution):
hackingthemainframe.com/temp/formatting.mov
(110 meg video clip)
So um, format c: /q /u is definitely the fastest. An unconditional quick format.
And yes, I have too much time on my hands and am a super geek.
If watching somebody repeatedly formatting a computer isn’t your thing, then here are some other videos:
menino.com/temp/blueweb.mov
menino.com/temp/davemetro.mov
menino.com/temp/lickitup.mov
menino.com/temp/rebel.mov
menino.com/temp/Shitlist.mov
menino.com/temp/banana.mov
Funny stuff.
This is funny. I have used this command so much and well never have any problems what are we arguing here ?