On Tuesday 10 April 2007 22:27, Rick Stevens wrote: > On Tue, 2007-04-10 at 22:04 +0200, Nigel Henry wrote: > > 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. Rick writes > For an MS-DOS floppy, > > #fdformat /dev/fd0H1440;mformat a: No go with that, see below. [root@localhost djmons]# fdformat /dev/fd0H 1440;mformat a: usage: fdformat [ -n ] device mformat: init: set default params Bit lost cause havn't worked with these programs before. On to the man page for fdformat, and I think you did a typo between "fd0H" and "1440" , no space required. So ran it again, and it started formatting the disc, but then crapped out with the output below. Doh, Doh, and thrice Doh. [root@localhost djmons]# fdformat /dev/fd0H1440;mformat a: Double-sided, 80 tracks, 18 sec/track. Total capacity 1440 kB. Formatting ... done Verifying ... Read: : Input/output error Problem reading cylinder 0, expected 18432, read -1 plain_io: Input/output error mformat: Error reading from '/dev/fd0', wrong parameters? Any suggestions, apart from throwing the floppies in the trash? Nigel.
