A:

The machine I'm using is running Windoze 7.1 and does not have a built in floppy disk drive. I just plug in a USB external floppy drive, and tried reproducing the problem as you describe it, but couldn't do it. I could always regain control, even when I inserted a floppy disk that I randomly trashed with a magnet. There might be a difference in the way an external USB drive and your internal floppy drive is handled by the BIOS.

Are you having problems with a 3.5" 1.44MByte floppy drive, or a 5.25"

1.2MB floppy drive? There's usually a setting for 3.5" in the BIOS settings, but the 5.25" setting is often missing. This video demonstrates that it can be done with Windoze 7, but my luck with 5.25" drives on modern machines has been dismal: (2:34)

Suggestions:

1. Hit C to reset the floppy drive if it's stuck in a loop. I suspect this will only work if you're working from an MSDOS (CMD) window.

1. to switch between other open windows and the desktop. If you get the desktop, use the Task Manager to kill the stuck floppy read process.

2. again to the desktop. Right click on the A: icon and try various escape routes. With a USB floppy drive, "Eject" might work.

1. I've had problems with virus scanners wanting to removable media before allowing user access. You might try temporarily disabling your auntie-virus program or configuring it to not scan the floppies on insertion.

2. There are programs that create image files of floppies that are used mostly by retro-gamers to run old games without the hassle and slow speed of a floppy drive. I'm too lazy to offer and example.

1. Post your computer questions to some kind of old hardware or ancient PC tech forum. You'll get better solutions and answers than in S.E.D.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

I dug out an USB FD, and that works like a charm.

Thanks.

You can use ufiformat on Linux to do a lot of stuff with a USB floppy drive so long as the custom format is at the raw bit level and doesn't require some "physical layer" difference between the media like different track widths, see:

I don't think you know what I was actually referring to.

You can create a bit-for-bit copy of an empty but formatted disk image on the USB floppy if you can specify the number of sectors per track, heads, and cylinders.

If that won't do whatever it is you want to do I guess you're OOL

"Raw level format is to write gap,index,sectors to the unformatted disk using special commands specific to the disk controller, to make the plain magneto-sensitive film into sector-addressable medium."

If you can't accomplish the format you need by directly commanding the USB floppy disk controller at the lowest level accessible to the PC-side software then couldn't tell you what you're hoping for

Win7/10 Explorer don't seem to recognize it. Basically, you have to open a command shell and use the DOS-like commands. That worked fine.

I did this recently because I have a Imation Superdisk 120 USB drive. It reads the superdisks and regular floppies.

on an somewhat related note, I assigned one of my hard drives to the B drive, because "B" will never be used for anything else. I reserve A for the occasional USB Superdisk access.