Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!samsung!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!bronze!silver!streib
From: streib@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Allan Streib)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: floppy disk questions
Message-ID: <1991Apr13.230656.6140@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
Date: 13 Apr 91 23:06:56 GMT
Sender: news@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (USENET News System)
Organization: Indiana University, Bloomington
Lines: 21

Sorry for the possible FAQ: Can somebody tell me how to use disk(8),
fdform(8), or other appropriate unix command to format/initialize a
floppy disk on the slab?  Which device should I specify? /dev/fd0a
didn't work.  /dev/fd1a seemed like it was going to work, then said
something about improper ioctl. (Can't remember the exact message
now).  I was doing all this as root.

Maybe I just have a bunch of bad disks, but when I try to format from
the Workspace it always chokes, saying the disk is unusable. These are
720 KB disks.

Also, I want to reuse some disks that have MS-DOS filesystems already.
Workspace reformats these as DOS disks, not unix, so the above applies
to these disks as well.

I've perused the documentation and checked NextAnswers, but couldn't
find a specific answer.  

Thanks 

-Allan