Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watcgl!mimperat
From: mimperat@watcgl.waterloo.edu (Marco Imperatore)
Subject: formatting floppy diskettes
Message-ID: <1991Jun20.041937.24039@watcgl.waterloo.edu>
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1991 04:19:37 GMT
Lines: 30

My DOS format program has suddently stopped working (have no idea why).  It
goes through the usual initial steps of asking me to insert a disk in drive a:,
it prints "head 0 cylinder 0" as if it's working, and then it complains that
about invalid media.

I tried formatting an already formatted diskette and it killed it.  After the
attempted formatting operation, I could no longer even DIR the diskette.  A
second attempt to format the diskette complained about a bad track/sector 0.

Can someone please tell me if these symptoms sound familiar?  Can someone
also please tell me why a *format* program should care what's on track 0,
sector 0.  I could understand if it was a physically corrupt sector but it
seems that the problems arises because of what's stored there.  I am pretty
darned sure that the disketted I tried to format were in excellent physical
condition.

What can I try next?  Could someone describe (or point me to) other possible
ways to format a diskette (including actually writing a C program to do it).
I actually tried to write a program to do this once but I managed to mess
up yet another diskette when I attempted to write track 0, sector 0.

I would welcome any and all information on this subject.  Please e-mail
me at mimperatore@watcgl.waterloo.edu as I don't read this newsgroup very
often.

Many advanced thanks.
-- 
Marco Imperatore
Computer Graphics Lab, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
mimperatore@watcgl.waterloo.edu