That used to be test I would do to test the floppy after installation. If it
could format a floppy drive and boot from it then the density was correct
and the floppy drive was okay.
I have 3 children and have found lots of things in the floppy drives. I
experienced a problem similar to yours when they stuck popsickle sticks in a
3 1/2" drive and I could almost format the floppy, but one of the heads had
become misalligned and could not make it a bootable disk. A lot of these
types of problems are unrepairable.
I have also found since I use a rather large tower and have supplemented the
cooling capacity with an OUTWARD blowing fan, that the floppies become a
good air intake for dust. I have found rather large bundles of fibre all
around the heads. I think last time I used a regular vacum to clean it out
without removing, but there are regular attachments as I'm sure your aware
of. This was a delicate operation with a flashlight as it was extremely easy
to damage something.
Did you know that you can fit Library cds inside a 5 1/4 " floppy drive
perfectly without detection?
It is odd that you can boot with another computer's system disk though since
you would think they would use the same sector parameters. Could be
coincidence?

Good luck,
Jay Johnston
-----Original Message-----
From: Eric Outten <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wednesday, January 06, 1999 11:53 PM
Subject: Re: [PCBUILD] Can Not Create Bootable Floopy


>Try a new floppy drive Jim.  They go flaky in weird ways sometimes.  If
>that doesn't work send more details.]
>Eric
>
>Jim Cook wrote:
>>
>> Hello,
>>
>>      All of a sudden I have discovered I cannot format a floppy disk and
>> make it bootable.  I have tried using the format command from MY COMPUTER
in
>> Windows 98 and using the format A:/s command at the DOS prompt.  The
files
>> are there.  I can boot from a floppy made at another computer and boot
from
>> a Windows 98 setup disk. I can't remember when the last time I made a
>> bootable floppy on this computer but I have done it before.  What's the
deal
>> here ???
>>
>> Thanks
>> Jim Cook
>> Jim's Computer Systems

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