Re: how to reformat floppies that have data on them

Nigel Henry wrote:

I looked in the BIOS of the other machine, and the only boot options are
floppy, or harddrive.

I know what's going to happen here. The problem will be solved on the very day
that the new floppies arrive in the mail.

Unfortunately, I've only got a bike. Otherwise I could drive a few Miles, and
pick some up at a computer store.

Thanks for the help.

Nigel.

The problem could well be the floppies. Depending on how old they
are, they may no longer be capable of being formatted correctly. I
have a bunch of older floppies that will not format on any machine.
I am fine as long as I only want to read them.

One thing I suspect is that because the erase head is narrower then
the read head, there is too much of the old format being read, and
it is conflicting with the new formatting. I suspect this because I
have less problems with the disks that were formatted with the same
drive as I using, and more with ones formatted with different
drives. I have also had luck with erasing the floppy with a bulk
tape eraser before formatting them. This works with about half the
floppies that give me trouble otherwise. It is worth trying if you
are going to throw the floppy away otherwise and happen to have a
bulk tape eraser handy. Using a standard magnet does not work nearly
as well.

Mikkel
--

Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons,
for thou art crunchy and taste good with Ketchup!

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