Synopsis: cbmformat [OPTION]... DRIVE NAME,ID
cbmformat is a fast low-level disk formatter for the 1541 and compatible devices (1570, 1571, third-party clones). The drive routine was taken from the Star Commander ((C) Joe Forster/STA).
Here's a complete list of known options:
Display help and exit.
Display version information and exit.
Do not bump drive head at the beginning. Don't use this on eventually misaligned drives.
Format 40 track disk. BAM format is SpeedDOS compatible.
Fill sectors with the original pattern (0x4b, 0x01, 0x01...) instead of zeroes. The original pattern is probably due to a bug in the drive ROM, apart from this, zeroing out unused sectors should give (slightly) better results for compressed disk images.
Display drive status after formatting. Normally, cbmformat exits after executing the drive code. With this option turned on, cbmformat waits until the drive has finished formatting and prints the drive status after initializing the BAM on standard out.
Display a hash mark ('#') for each formatted track. Slows formatting down a bit.
Format standard disk (35 tracks) in drive 8, use (buggy) 1541 sector pattern, show drive status when done:
cbmformat -os 8 GAMES,42
SpeedDOS disk (40 tracks), show progress indicator, all sectors zeroed out, no head banging:
cbmformat -npx 8 "40 TRACKS,OK"