jude1977 wrote on 2024-07-02, 15:09:
Hi i typed what you said to type in dos mode definitely gives me the option to format disk but every disk I format in dos mode seems to give me this error message I’ve taken a screenshot for you
Back in the DOS days I would trash the floppy if it gave me such errors. But I was a bit too naive back then. You see, DOS is pretty stupid, but it tries hard and it actually makes things worse. In many cases DOS will look at the first sector of the floppy (even when using /U with format) to try and determine the floppy previous format. But not because it want's to format it again in the same way - no, that would be too smart. It just checks if you aren't trying to re-format to what it considers an invalid combination (like doing 720k on a 1.44M drive, on a floppy with a hole). The problem is, DOS often misunderstands what it finds and refuses to format a clean disk, or one formatted win non-DOS tools.
TL;DR: You now need to try non-DOS tool to make sure it isn't DOS stupidity preventing you from doing the format. I recommend FDFORMAT from FDFORM18 package. You can find it in FreeDOS, or just by running your favourite web search with "FDFORM18" keyword. In that package there will be FDFORMAT.EXE file, run that instead. Either just by typing FDFORMAT A: or try adding F120 at the end to that. See what that does.
Another way is to try and use a strong magnet to wipe the floppy but seeing how it's all rather new to you I'd suggest you keep your magnets away from your floppies for now. You can always revist that idea later if nothing else works.
