Formatting a 3.5 ins Floppy - "Unable to complete the format Error"

Hi – I am having problems in formatting a 3.5” floppy disc on my Win XP laptop, the error code reading “Windows was unable to complete the format”. The floppy drive is in good working order and is able to read and write to/from my other collection of discs. The normal FAT system applies.

I have Googled the problem and although several other users in the past have had the same issue I have not had much luck in finding an answer. Can any of the old hands suggest some possible solutions to the problem?

Have you 'Disk check' -ed it?

Actually CHKDSK

https://www.google.com/search?q=chkdsk&oq=chkdsk&aqs=chrome..69i57.3530j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Could be a dodgy floppy. Have you tried formatting another one? Have you got another drive to use to confirm that the drive is really not the problem? A USB 3.5" floppy drive for example? It would probably be a good idea to have one anyway if you are still working with these older systems.

Martin C

I had something similar happen at my last job. Someone had some very important information on a 3.5 floppy that couldn’t be read on several different PC’s. I was asked to help and strangely the disc was easily read on a Mac. I copied the data to the HD, reformatted the floppy then copied to data back into it. This actually happened to the same person twice. Quite what the problem was I don’t know. If I still had a floppy drive I’d offer to reformat it for you just out of curiosity.
Maybe you could run a cleaning disc in the drive? We used to have a couple at my old job years ago.

**LINK**

We had this happen back in 07, with floppy discs in a Hass milling machine. The issue is the FAT is all used up. I found no way of clearing this. We were able to extract all the files on the disc and although it had a couple thousand small text files, the disc was less than half full.

Another issue was reading a file, making changes to the file and then saving that file and allowing an over write to occur. In most cases this was just fine, but in some cases, it created a corrupted file in the processes.

There was a free program to extract the files from 3.5 floppy discs , forgotten what it was called. Some of the very old discs, the media itself was failing and created an issue in the drive on the machine. After another was found and the unit replaced, I took it apart and carefully cleaned it, put it back together and all worked well. The discs were discarded and new ones were purchased. I have not seen them for sale recently, but have not been looking either. The machine has since been upgraded to RS232 , so no programs on floppies anymore.

Neil

If memory serves there is a suite of disc doctor software for windows to help recover damaged files and discs if chkdsk can't fix it.
I had reason to buy a USB 3.5" floppy drive to access some old family files and it was quite a cheap item around £12 posted if I recall.
Or just buy a new floppy disc. I've probably got some lying around somewhere with out of date software or utilities that came with ancient PC's that have been scrapped since.

pgk

The read/write slider is in the right position of course .... ?

Another issue is if the disk is double density (DD) 720kB rather than High Density (HD) 1.44MB. These have different magnetic properties and some DD drives write a wider magnetic track than newr HD drives. If the disk was formatted in a DD drive then a HD drive may not be able to over-write the old wider track.
There is also the possibilty that the disk has been modified so a HD lappears to be a DD or vice versa. The HD disks have an additional hole on the edge opposite the write protect hole.

Why bother with this disk anyway? Just get one that works. If there is any issue with the disk the data may not be there when you need it.

Robert.

Hi all- Thanks for all the advice and help offered. I feel a little more knowledgably now on the subject

A late contribution, from me, but might be useful. There are 3 levels of formatting on a floppy disc, only two of which are accessible to the user. They are:

• A low-level format added by the manufacturer. Data is written to a series of concentric tracks, not a gramophone type spiral, that are organised into sectors containing blocks. The number of tracks, blocks and sectors are determined by the disc manufacturer, and the sector start points identified by a special string of data. When a read or write is requested, the disc controller moves the head to the correct track, identifies where the sector starts from the special code, and then knows the next 'n' blocks are user data.
• The next level is available to the user. A 'full format' builds on the low-level format to add a file system to the disc. File systems are understood by the operating system. They provide filenames, permissions, error checking, and high-level organisation of the disc. Some layouts optimise write performance, others read. Some provide speed, others can get more data on the disc. Floppy discs are low capacity, so a lightweight file system is used. FAT is almost universal on floppies, but it's only good for small discs. Big discs are formatted with something smarter, NTFS, ext3, APFS.
• As a full 'Full format' takes a long time - setting up from scratch removes whatever is on the disc already and checks the low-level format is OK - there's usually a 'Quick format' option. This assumes that the existing file system and low-level format are both in good order. It unhooks existing data, and declares the blocks 'free' so they can be reused. Not a way of deleting private data because it's still available to anyone with the right software.

When a Microsoft disc malfunctions, the first thing to try is CHKDSK: read the manual! CHKDSK is smart enough to detect file system and low-level format errors. It's fairly effective at fixing file system errors provided they're not caused by low-level format or physical faults. These are dealt with, up to a point, by patching them out. If a bad sector is identified, it tells the file system not to use it. (Most floppy and hard discs have a few bad sectors from new.)

However, CHKDSK isn't perfect, so the next step is a Quick Format. Don't expect much! The main advantage of a quick format is speed, and with luck, the error might be a simple one it can fix. Usually not, in which case a full format is called for. Again, read the manual. format run from the command line may be able to force extra checks.

Here's the bad news. Floppy discs went out of fashion because they're unreliable. Hot stuff when they first appeared, but the design rotates a delicate magnetic surface inside a touching sleeve, and the head physically rubs the surface. They're vulnerable to particles getting inside the envelope, to dirt on the head, and to worn heads. Quality control was good rather than perfect, and this showed up when organisations bought discs in thousands. Even in the best makes it was usual to find a few discs per hundred that quickly failed. Same problem with disc drives: a proportion of them would rough up new discs, causing early failures. Grubby locations had higher failure rates than clean offices. Floppies were reasonably reliable, but frequent backups and careful handling were insisted on. If a disc showed any sign of malfunction, it would be ditched immediately. The reason is that debris from a scratched surface can damage the head, and a damaged head will damage other discs as well.

As floppy discs are still widely available and inexpensive, don't mess with persistently wonky ones. Throw them away.

If a system fails to format a few new floppy discs, the disc drive may be damaged. Change it or buy a new computer.

Though they have different flaws, memory sticks are a far better alternative. They're immune to dirt and magnetic fields, and hold massively more data. But the computer has to be modern enough to support them!

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 14/05/2023 09:55:01

It was write protected wasn't it! Why oh why does microsoft always go right through a slow process, only to tell you right at the end that it can't do what you asked it to do, which in most cases it knew it could not complete at the begining of the process!! On another microshaft complaint, I bought a microsoft Lifecam, which was supposed to be always compatible with any version of windoze, it was a camera "for life". It will not create video files, it has been like this from day 1, it is a known to microsoft fault, and there is a tremendously complex so called fix for it which is way beyond my patience to even attempt! Microshaft have not even bothered to put it in any MS update! If Mr gates ever crosses the road in front of me he had better be wearing trainers!!

Phil

Dave, ummm....not entirely true....

Floppies from the single density single sided FM encoded 8" versions right through to the 3.5" double sided, double density, MFM encoded had the entire write process controlled by the disk controller on the PC. These were initially separate boards, then separate devices before being incorporated into the main uProcessors.
Disks often but not always came with a formatting laid down by the manufacturer but this was only for convenience.
The floppy Disk Controller (FDC), if instructed to do a format, monitored the Index line on the interface and then laid down ‘n’ sectors with headers consisting of head/track and sector n° as well as data status (deleted or not) and a CNC code and then laid down the data part of the sector with ‘m’ bytes of data (usually FF) followed by a similar checksum. From memory, the data section always started with some 1s/0s pattern – but its nearly 40 years since I looked closely!
Once the format was finished, the header part was never changed (apart from altering the deleted flag & CNC) unless another format was performed.

If the FDC was instructed to write to a sector, it waggled the head and track lines to the drive and then read the headers until it the right sector, read through the header, waited until the data section marker and then splurged the data plus the updated CNC. A similar process for reading a sector. Some FDCs started reading from the index point, some just read and waited until the right sector came around.

If you requested a quick format, I think they generally just set all header flags to ‘deleted’. A full format just rewrote everything.

Macs were very different in that the FDC was much more controlling and I seem to remember that the entire track, headers and data, were sync’d from the index point and that (maybe) there was a physical feedback of the sector through their interface.

Hard drives of that era (ST506, ST412) followed the same logic and flow, it just happened a lot faster!

I spent nearly 10 years digitally emulating floppys, and a range of hard drives from those fitted to IBM PC-ATs through solutions attached to mini and mainframes as well as odd balls such as drums and core-stores…..fascinating stuff until SCSI came along and moved the intelligence to the drive.

Yeah, I plead guilty to oversimplifying. In the early days, floppies were remarkably diverse, I think industry tried everything and I guess a long book could be written about them. Doesn't help that my memory is faulty. I worked with many early floppy systems and don't remember any of them being able to do a low-level format. I believe you - either I have brain fade or hadn't read the manual.

Didn't work with drums myself, but the guys who taught me Data Processing had plenty of stories about them. Such as one escaping and terrorising everyone by running amok around the computer room!

Dave

I think I have the Central Point Software Option board around somewhere which was able to circumvent some of the tricks employed for copy protection of floppy discs. Some friends bought it while over in the USA but somehow I finished up being the keeper of the equipment. Of course we only used it to make backups of protected discs😉

Mike