Troubleshooting Guide to Formatting
If you don’t already know in order for a floppy disk to
recognize the computer that you are working with it has to do a format. The
format prepares the floppy for functional use on a computer. In the olden days
you would type in at the DOS (Disk Operating System) a command and the floppy
would format. But today with Windows you don’t have to type out anything the
Windows does that for you in the background.
To do a format to a floppy that is either new or used follow
these steps:
Go to My Computer that’s on the desktop as shown on diagram
1:1
Diagram 1:1
Double click into My Computer and highlight the floppy
drive, which says 3 ½, inch floppy (A:). You can see that in diagram 2:2.
Diagram 2:2
Go highlight the floppy drive if the floppy drive is not
highlighted then in a sense it’s not selected so you won’t be able to format
the floppy. Once it is highlighted you can go to File>Format as shown in
diagram 3:3.
Diagram 3:3
As soon as you click on format a screen will pop up like
this one in diagram 4:4
Diagram 4:4
Here you can just erase what’s on the floppy or do a full
format, which is what I recommend. You don’t have to give it a label just press
Start. A screen will pop up like in diagram 5:5.
Diagram 5:5
As soon as it is done a screen will pop up like this one in
Diagram 6:6. Once the format is complete all you need to do is press close and
then close again. Exit all the windows that are open and you have successfully
formatted a floppy disk.
