Chapter 2. Using Kfloppy

Starting Kfloppy opens a single window by which the user may choose appropriate settings and control the formatting process. These options and controls are detailed below.

Caution

Make sure that your floppy disk is not mounted. Kfloppy cannot format a mounted floppy disk.

Control Settings

The settings are chosen by means of three drop down boxes located at the top left center of Kfloppy.

Floppy Drive

Clicking on the top drop down box, which is labeled Floppy drive:, offers the user the following two choices:

  • Primary

  • Secondary

Clicking on the second drop down box from the top, which is labeled Size:, offers the user the following four choices:

  • 3.5" 1.44MB

  • 3.5" 720KB

  • 5.25" 1.2MB

  • 5.25" 360KB

The Linux® version of Kfloppy has also a choice of size named:

  • Auto-Detect

Note

The 800KB disk format used by Mac® floppy drives cannot be supported on PC floppy drives since they are not capable of formatting disks in that fashion.

File Systems

The third drop down box, labeled File System, offers the user the following choices, if they are applicable:

Dos

This selection will have Kfloppy place the MS-DOS/Windows® type of file system on the diskette. The user will most likely want to choose this system if she or he will be using the diskette with those operating systems as they do not recognize other system types. (This is supported for Linux® and BSD™.)

ext2

This selection will have Kfloppy place the type of file system on the diskette which is most commonly used with Linux®, however seldomly on floppy disks. (This is supported for Linux® and BSD™.)

UFS

This selection will have Kfloppy place the type of file system on the diskette which is most commonly used with FreeBSD®. The user will likely want to choose this system if he or she will only be using the floppy disk with FreeBSD®. (This is supported for BSD™ only.)

Minix

This selection will have Kfloppy place the type of file system on the diskette which often used on floppy disks used with Linux®, (This is supported for Linux® only.)