How can I create an error free floppy disc with the floppy hard drive I bought?

I want to make a bios disc and I have a bunch of old floppy discs laying around though I'm pretty sure some of them are messed up or what not. Is there a way for me to scan them to see if they are in 100% working order or a way I can make them 100% working order so I can make an error free bios disc?

I mean I just inserted a floppy in the new floppy drive and keep in mind I'm making a bios disc. When I double clicked the floppy drive with the floppy in it. The drive said "The floppy disc is not formatted", and a menu popped up. I understand all of the stuff it says because most cannot be reset such as size, file system, and allocation unit size. But in the bottom of the menu it says format options:

QUICK FORMAT [ ]

CREATE MS DOS STARTUP DISC [ ]


The [ ] represents a check box. Remember I'm going to be using this as a bios disc so what do you all think I should pick? None?

 

You can use Quick Format. When you run the program to create the BIOS disk it will probably format the disk again before writing the bios files.

 

if you are taliking about making a windows start up disk then check both of the boxes. if you are making a bois startup disk then just quick format it and use the program

 

whats a floppy?
kiddin, sorry, must not be sassy again

 

If you do a quick format, only the directory information is marked deleted. I prefer to do a full format on floppies, even though it takes a minute. This puts brand new full strength sector codes on each track. Each track is then re-read, and if the sector codes don't appear at the correct interval then the disk may be flagged as bad. It's a fairly reliable go/nogo test..
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Thanks Prometheos,


You gave me the best answer I can use whenever I make floppies. Very good information, I will do that from now on.

 

You're very welcome, superstar. Glad to help.
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Here is a link from which you can download DiskTest Pro v.1.3:
http://www.rocketdownload.com/programs.php?cat_id=10&subcat_id=178&sort=2
It is a utility for verification of floppies. Also, I always do a full format on a new floppy two or three times before making anything as critical as a BIOS flasher disk. Often, a full format or two will fix disk errors which DiskTest Pro shows. Good night and good luck.

 

For a more detailed scan, you could also use the Windows CHKDSK.EXE program. I have a floppy that works just fine, however, CHKDSK discovered that there were errors on the disk. From a command console( run CMD.EXE ) type:==>

So CHKDSK provides another level of floppy disk reliability..
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Wow thanks that's cool!