In message <199701210243.UAA20519@idea.exnet.iastate.edu>, you write:
> >now that we finally have a working "fdformat" - good job, who ever did it -
> >I would like to be able to create 3rd party especially MS-DOS filesystems,
> >too. Am I wrong or is there no command for this job yet?
> 
> 	To make DOS disks I usually keep an image lying around of a totally
> empty formatted DOS disk (using 'dd').
> 
> 		% dd if=/dev/fd0a | gzip | gzip > dos.gz.gz
> 
> [Amazingly, empty filesystems compress very well the second time.. from
> 1474560 bytes to 1995 to 641 bytes, for an empty MSDOS disk!]

Youch, why not just


 		% dd if=/dev/fd0a | gzip -9 > dos.gz

The -9 option tells it to use maximum compression.

> 	To create a DOS disk I would do:
> 
> 		% cat dos.gz.gz | gunzip | gunzip | dd of=/dev/fd0a
> 
> 	Actually, I often wonder about the need for such tools as DOS
> formatters and filesystem checkers for UNIX; I mean, where does it stop?
> Do we need a formatter for ext2fs? NTFS? DEC AdvFS?  =-)

Sure, why not... ;)

--
Michael Parson                     //        Illuminati Online  
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