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Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware,comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!uupsi!rodan.acs.syr.edu!amichiel
From: amichiel@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Allen J Michielsen)
Subject: Re: how do I re use vendor 3 1/2 floppy, wont format
Message-ID: <1991Jun16.034805.20891@rodan.acs.syr.edu>
Organization: Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY
References: <14451@ur-cc.UUCP> <1991Jun13.211714.8750@cs.uoregon.edu> <1991Jun15.035717.6204@cbnewsd.att.com>
Distribution: usa
Date: Sun, 16 Jun 1991 03:48:05 GMT

In article  sammy@cbnewsd.att.com (Sammy) writes:
>In article akm@obelix.cs.uoregon.edu (Anant Kartik Mithal) writes:
>>disks are 720 K. Many 1.44 mb drives have to be specifically told that 
>>they have a 720 k disk in them or else they won't format. 

>The next question is, how do you do this? I have this problem (720K disks

Question #1, Some/Many demo/vendor disks use media which have defects which
preclude their reuse or formatting by the end user.  The only way to find out
is to try to format it.

Question #2, under dos 3.3 & 4.+ (and probably anything after/including 3.0)
format a:/t:80/n:9/v/s  causes the disk in drive a to be formatted to a
standard 720K disk, verifies the format, and makes it bootable (system).

I usually make a .bat file for formatting 720K disks in this case, and
call it like 720k.bat or for720.bat, and in it it would look something like
format %1/t:80/n:9/v/%2/%3/%4
The symbols %1 and %2 pass variables like the drive label and other options 
to the bat file.
For example, if the .bat file was called, for720.bat, then it would work lik,
for720 a: s
would format drive a and make it bootable.
al


-- 
Al. Michielsen, Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Syracuse University
 InterNet: amichiel@rodan.acs.syr.edu  amichiel@sunrise.acs.syr.edu
 Bitnet: AMICHIEL@SUNRISE