Path: utzoo!attcan!ncrcan!ziebmef!mdfreed
From: mdfreed@ziebmef.mef.org (Mark Freedman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: floppy drive problems
Message-ID: <1989Aug25.033139.16278@ziebmef.mef.org>
Date: 25 Aug 89 07:31:38 GMT
References: <17348@ut-emx.UUCP>
Reply-To: mdfreed@ziebmef.mef.org (Mark Freedman)
Organization: Ziebmef Public Access Unix, Toronto, Ontario
Lines: 15


(both floppy drives suddenly become unable to format disks)
    it IS possible that botn drives have worn out (heads, alignment, whatever)
at the same instant, but .....
     I once had a similar experience. After buying a box of Maxell disks (back when they cost $50 / box), a head cleaning kit, taking the system apart and 
watching the heads step through the format without any apparent problem, I
tried formatting with the FORMAT program on the original release disk, rather
than a copied work disk. 
   This worked perfectly. I then copied FORMAT to the work disk, and formatted
successfully using the copy.
    I have no idea how FORMAT became corrupt, but that's what appeared to have
happened (I believe that it happened several more times over the years, but
that was a while ago). If I recall correctly, it was PC-DOS 2.x, so it may
have had something to do with that, or with JFORMAT / QDRIVE (Tall Tree 
Systems software to format / access different disk formats).