DOS feature on formatting disk

From: Dwight K. Elvey <dwight.elvey_at_amd.com>
Date: Tue Jan 18 12:16:11 2005

Hi Randy
 I've written special drivers for the floppies
under DOS in the past so that isn't a real
issue. I just wish it would work without me
having to pull out the reference books to
deal with it.
 It works incorrectly in both MSDOS and PCDOS.
It is just annoying. The /u should mean just that,
unconditionally format.
Dwight

>From: "Randy McLaughlin" <randy_at_s100-manuals.com>
>
>From: "Dwight K. Elvey" <dwight.elvey_at_amd.com>
>> Hi
>> DOS has an irritating feature when asked to format
>> a disk. If track 0 is partially readable it will
>> fail to format, even if you use the /u option.
>> I've been moving data from one machine to another
>> and the source machine has a flaky drive. It sometimes
>> trashes track 0.
>> I've found that the only way to get around this problem
>> is to wipe the disk with a strong magnet.
>> Why can't it just try to format first and then check
>> track 0. Why must it fail to format because track 0
>> is partially readable when I specifically asked it
>> to unconditionally format?
>> Dwight
>
>Try picking up the format program from freedos/opendos and see if it does
>the same. If needed it may be able to be modified.
>
>
>Randy
>
>
>
Received on Tue Jan 18 2005 - 12:16:11 GMT

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