Formatting a diskette?

KreativeKai

I want to add a section in my vb.net application to ask the client if they want to format a diskette or not. If they answer yes, go ahead and format a diskette in drive a:. Does anyone have some code in Vb that will format a diskette? Any Help is Appreciated :-O

Mike Ellison

You could try using the Windows API SHFormatDrive() function -- here's a class that wraps it:

Public Class ShellUtilities

Public Declare Unicode Function SHFormatDrive \_
Lib "Shell32.dll" \_
(ByVal hwnd As IntPtr, \_
 ByVal iDrive As Int32, \_
 ByVal iFormatID As Int32, \_
 ByVal iOptions As Int32) As Int64

Public Const SHFD\_CAPACITY\_DEFAULT = 0  'default drive capacity
Public Const SHFMT\_OPT\_FULL = 1
Public Const SHFMT\_OPT\_SYSONLY = 2


Public Shared Sub FormatDrive(ByVal dialogOwner As IntPtr, ByVal iDrive As Int32)
    SHFormatDrive(dialogOwner, iDrive, SHFD\_CAPACITY\_DEFAULT, SHFMT\_OPT\_FULL)
End Sub

End Class

And here's an example of calling it from a windows form button click:

Const A\_Drive = 0
Const B\_Drive = 1
Const C\_Drive = 2
' ... etc ...

Private Sub Button1\_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
    ShellUtilities.FormatDrive(Me.Handle, A\_Drive)
End Sub

Dave Kreskowiak

Try this:

Const SHFMT\_ID\_DEFAULT = -1
Const SHFMT\_OPT\_FULL = 1
Const SHFMT\_OPT\_SYSONLY = 2
Const SHFMT\_ERROR = -1          ' Error on last format, drive may be formatable
Const SHFMT\_CANCEL = -2         ' Last format was canceled
Const SHFMT\_NOFORMAT = -3       ' Drive is not formatable

' SHFormatDrive takes 4 parameters:
'   hWnd        The handle to the window that will be the dialogs parent window.
'   Drive       The drive number to format, 0 is A:, 1 is B:, 2 is C:, ...
'   fmtID       Must always be SHFMT\_ID\_DEFAULT, or the value ????.
'   options     Opitons.
Private Declare Function SHFormatDrive Lib "shell32" ( \_
    ByVal hWnd As IntPtr, \_
    ByVal Drive As Integer, \_
    ByVal fmtID As Integer, \_
    ByVal options As Integer) \_
    As Integer

Private Sub Button1\_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
    Dim iDrive As Integer
    Dim rc As Integer

    iDrive = 0
    rc = SHFormatDrive(Me.Handle, iDrive, 0, 0)
    Select Case rc
        Case SHFMT\_ERROR
            MsgBox("Format failed, user pressed CLOSE")
        Case SHFMT\_CANCEL
            MsgBox("Format cancelled - user hit CLOSE")
        Case SHFMT\_NOFORMAT
            MsgBox("Unable to format this disk drive")
        Case Else
            MsgBox("Disk was formatted successfully and returned: " & rc)
    End Select
End Sub

This will show the format dialog that you see when you do a format from the Explorer Shell. The format won't start until the user presses OK. RageInTheMachine9532

KreativeKai

Thank you very much for your feedback. I used the code that everyone submitted and it worked great!! Is there a way to pass the Label that you want to use when formatting the diskette. I found the SHFormatDrive documentation on MSDN, but I really don't see a way to pass a Label in. Thanks again for the help, Kevin :) Lost in the vast sea of .NET

Dave Kreskowiak

You can't pass that information to SHFormatDrive, but you can set the volume label after the disk is successfully formatted. You can use SetVolumeLabel, declared in kernel32, by passing in the root path of the drive, like A:\, and the name you want:

Private Declare Function SetVolumeLabel Lib "kernel32" \_
    Alias "SetVolumeLabelA" ( \_
    ByVal rootPath As String, \_
    ByVal newLabel As String) \_
    As Integer

Dim rc as Integer

rc = SetVolumeLabel( "A:\", "LabelTest" )

RageInTheMachine9532