how to reformat floppies that have data on them

I can use dd to put data on a new formatted floppy, but how do I reuse an old
floppy. I tried it on linux using dd, but got input/output errors, and even
tried it on that other OS, but that couln't complete the format. I even tried
reformatting an XP boot floppy on XP, and it couldn't complete the format.

I'm a bit lost at the moment. I'd buy some new ones, but my supplier hasn't
any available.

I know floppies are legacy, but I have an old machine with my smoothwall
firewall on it, and it can't boot from cdrom, so I need to remake the 2
floppies that start off the install.

Nigel.

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