Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!amdahl!rtech!llama!fredb
From: fredb@llama.rtech.UUCP (Fred Buechler)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Formatting 3.5" Diskette
Message-ID: <4444@rtech.rtech.com>
Date: 10 Jan 90 17:35:08 GMT
References: <20972@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> <7509@pt.cs.cmu.edu>
Sender: news@rtech.rtech.com
Reply-To: fredb@llama.UUCP (Fred Buechler)
Organization: Relational Technology, Inc. Alameda, CA
Lines: 27

In article <7509@pt.cs.cmu.edu> ralf@b.gp.cs.cmu.edu (Ralf Brown) writes:
>In article <20972@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> LEE@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes:
>}I recenlty bought 3.5" DS/DD Dysan diskettes. The problem is FORMAT command
>}in dos would not format the diskettes. It says, "Track 0 is bad, Diskette
>}unusable." All 50 diskettes are same. But if I format the diskettes using
>}PCTOOLS, I can format them and use them without any problem. Dos doesn't
>}still format them after I format them with PCTOOLS.
>
>I believe that you have encountered a bug in all known versions of DOS
>FORMAT.  It doesn't check whether its buffers cross over a DMA boundary, and
>blindly uses them; this results in an error which makes FORMAT claim the
>disk is unusable.  The solution is to add or remove a TSR to shift the
>location in memory where FORMAT gets loaded.
>
>-- 
>{backbone}!cs.cmu.edu!ralf   ARPA: RALF@CS.CMU.EDU   FIDO: Ralf Brown 1:129/46
>BITnet: RALF%CS.CMU.EDU@CMUCCVMA   AT&Tnet: (412)268-3053 (school)   FAX: ask
>DISCLAIMER? | _How_to_Prove_It_ by Dana Angluin  24. by appeal to intuition:
>What's that?| Cloud-shaped drawings frequently help here.


 Great answer, but not in this dimension. The address that FORMAT gets
 loaded at has *nothing* to do with its operation!

 The problem is that DOS FORMAT attempts to format the diskette for the
 maximum density that the drive supports. To format a 720k (DS/DD) diskette
 in a high density (1.44mb) drive, use the command: FORMAT A: /t:80 /n:9