mimperat@watcgl.waterloo.edu (Marco Imperatore) (06/20/91)
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
ntaib@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Nur Iskandar Taib) (06/21/91)
>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. Try copying format.com from your original DOS diskette onto your hard drive. Also check for viruses (?) -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Iskandar Taib | The only thing worse than Peach ala Internet: NTAIB@AQUA.UCS.INDIANA.EDU | Frog is Frog ala Peach Bitnet: NTAIB@IUBACS ! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
rhyde@koufax.ucr.edu (randy hyde) (06/22/91)
>> Cannot format diskettes...
I had a similar problem a couple of weeks ago. Turned out to be a virus.
Scan your disks!
*** Randy Hyde