A command common to all Microsoft operating systems that can be used to install a file system on a partition. After a drive has been partitioned as desired, each partition must be formatted before files can be stored on the partition. Note that formatting a partition causes all data previously stored on it to be lost.
In Microsoft Windows 95 and Windows 98, format /d: /u performs an unconditional (irreversible) format of drive D.
You can use the graphical user interface (GUI) tool Disk Administrator in Windows NT and the Disk Management utility in Windows 2000 to format a disk volume. Disk Management is found in the Storage folder of the Computer Management tool in Windows 2000.