How to format a floppy disk in a USB floppy drive?

[boatman9]

What is the procedure to format a blank floppy disk in a USB floppy drive? I am using Mandriva 2010.0. I have some floppy disks which have been magnetically bulk erased, so they need the low level format as well as the file system format. I'd like to format them as msdos FAT12 using a command line.

 

While searching the web I found a program called "ufiformat" which is supposed to do the job, however ufiformat does not seem to be in the Mandriva repositories.

[ianw1974]

You could use:

 

mkfs.msdos /dev/whatever

 

to format the partition on that disk. To create the partition, use fdisk from the Linux CLI or alternatively cfdisk if you prefer. Once a partition is created, you can change the type.

[Guest salhford]

You can also format your floppy disk in a USB floppy drive with the following steps :

 

1. Insert floppy

2. Right click on USB floppy drive

3. Select format option.

4. OK.