RE:Apple 2e diskette formatting

[Jim.Low@logicbbs.org]

Except for the very early IIe sales, that system came with the ProDOS System 
Utilities which included "filer" for formatting disks.  It's awkward to work 
with, but is free and will do the job.  A much better utility that includes 
formatting is Copy II Plus, which is commercial.
 
If it's a very early IIe it should have come with the DOS 3.3 system disk.  
If so, you could boot that and format DOS 3.3 (but not ProDOS) disks by 
booting the disk, removing the utility disk, inserting a blank (or Scratch) 
disk and typing INIT HELLO.
 
There were two major formatting methods for Apple II.  The earlier one was 
DOS 3.3 (not the same as PC DOS 3.3 whcih came much later), and about 1983 
came ProDOS.
 
Before someone corrects me, I know there were other formats used in Aple II 
such as CP/M, Pascal, etc.