formatting in MS-DOS

[Name9902]

i know very little about DOS, but i do know that you can format and partition using MS-DOS. My question is...why can i not format my disks without partitioning first. Using an MS-DOS floppy i have tried to format HDDS on 3 separate comps, but i cannot do it unless i create some type of partition.

Any thoughts on this subject?

[Lazn_Work]

Umm, because it needs a partition to format.

Format puts a file system onto a partition, that is what Formatting does, this is true in every case, windows, dos, unix, linux, bsd etc. without a partiton Format does not make sense. The partiton can be as big as the whole drive, but does not have to be.

If you want to create a partition in MS-Dos you use FDisk.

==>Lazn