Kreisen 3 8 6 X / X E User Manual

Formatting Diskettes

When you get a new carton of diskettes, they are not yet ready

to be used. First, they must be prepared to accept data. This is
called “formatting” the diskette.

MS-DOS uses the same formatting method regardless of the

computer used. This is one of the keys to intermachine

compatibility. Since all PC-compatible computers use MS-DOS,

they can read all disks created by any other PC-compatible

machine.

To see what happens when you attempt to use an unformatted

disk, insert a new blank diskette into the A drive and close the
drive door. Then enter the following command:

Since the new disk hasn’t been formatted yet, your computer

cannot read it. After failing three times, your computer will
respond:

General 

Failure error reading drive 

A

Abort, Retry, Failure?

If you type R (fir Retry), the computer will attempt to read the

diskette again, and will finally display the same message.