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Chapter 5 - Disk Initialization Manager / Disk Initialization Manager Reference

Routines / Low-Level Disk Initialization Routines

DIFormat

To format a disk, you can use the DIFormat function.

FUNCTION DIFormat (drvNum: Integer): OSErr;

drvNum

The number of the drive containing the disk to be formatted.

DESCRIPTION

The DIFormat function attempts to format the disk in the drive specified by the drvNum parameter and returns a result code indicating whether it completed the formatting successfully or failed. Formatting a disk consists of writing special information onto it
so that the disk driver can read from and write to the disk.

You can use DIFormat to format any unlocked disk, including single-sided disks, double-sided disks, high-density disks, and hard disk drives. It formats both sides
of a double-sided disk.

You have to unmount a disk before calling the DIFormat function.

ASSEMBLY-LANGUAGE INFORMATION

The trap macro and routine selector for DIFormat are

Trap macro	Selector
_Pack2	$0006

SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS

You should not call DIFormat at interrupt time.

RESULT CODES

noErr	0	No error
volOnLinErr	-55	Volume is online
lastDskErr	-64	Last of the range of low-level disk errors
...
firstDskErr	-84	First of the range of low-level disk errors