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Format floppy disks

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First post, by Perro

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Hi.
I'm looking for a program to format floppy disks in ms-dos, that is powerful or some trick to recover disks with damaged track 0. Thank you.

Reply 1 of 10, by thierry

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Try to look the program NFORMAT , its a nice DOS Format .

The track 0 its a pain in the as.. , try Bulk Eraser First , part of Copy II PC , and second try this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaQ6K5Yt1SA

I recover some disk using this tool from the video http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/img/index.htm

Reply 2 of 10, by Jo22

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thierry wrote on 2020-07-20, 04:40:

The track 0 its a pain in the as..

I second this.
My workaround was to use WinImage and rewrite a blank disk image/DOS 6 Installation disk image to the damaged disk.
This overwrote the full disk and made it usable again.

Anyway, it's just a temporary solution.

Alternatively, I also used PC-Tools 7 (by Central Point) which has a recovery tool.
It was not always able to safe the disk, though.
Rather, it caused data corruption..

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

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Reply 3 of 10, by Errius

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Can you just use a powerful magnet to wipe the disk?

Is this too much voodoo?

Reply 4 of 10, by appiah4

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Linux mkfs.fat can do this no problem in my experience..

Reply 5 of 10, by thierry

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Jo22 wrote on 2020-07-20, 20:47:
I second this. My workaround was to use WinImage and rewrite a blank disk image/DOS 6 Installation disk image to the damaged dis […]
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thierry wrote on 2020-07-20, 04:40:

The track 0 its a pain in the as..

I second this.
My workaround was to use WinImage and rewrite a blank disk image/DOS 6 Installation disk image to the damaged disk.
This overwrote the full disk and made it usable again.

Anyway, it's just a temporary solution.

Alternatively, I also used PC-Tools 7 (by Central Point) which has a recovery tool.
It was not always able to safe the disk, though.
Rather, it caused data corruption..

Another one that I use that also saved a 720k floppy disk was Norton Disk Doctor version 4.5, the tool Revive a defective floppy disk, I was able to recover several from an XT Nec V20 PC, although previously I had to clean the floppy disk or with alcohol and swab or some wipes called Huggies that are for children, that one has very good results, but then you have to dry it.

Errius wrote on 2020-07-21, 10:36:

Can you just use a powerful magnet to wipe the disk?

I know someone who tried it but the results were not so good, he told me that he could not format it again.

Reply 6 of 10, by maxtherabbit

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If track 0 is physically fucked then disk is trash, no software will fix that

Reply 7 of 10, by thierry

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maxtherabbit wrote on 2020-07-21, 13:59:

If track 0 is physically fucked then disk is trash, no software will fix that

I do not agree, as I said, I was able to recover floppy disks, first cleaning them, second trying several programs, from 6 floppy disks of 10 recovered being saved.

Reply 8 of 10, by maxtherabbit

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Then it wasn't physically damaged

Reply 9 of 10, by Disruptor

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1) format it with VGACopy
2) format it in a LS-120 drive

Reply 10 of 10, by appiah4

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Disruptor wrote on 2020-07-21, 23:36:

1) format it with VGACopy
2) format it in a LS-120 drive

Whoa, I googled this and I am mindblown. I used several versions of X-Copy on Amiga, but never knew such a thing existed for the PC.