[Agent-X]

I have this floppy that just won't format.

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ mkfs -t ext3 /dev/sdb 1440
mke2fs 1.40.2 (12-Jul-2007)
/dev/sdb is entire device, not just one partition!
Proceed anyway? (y,n) y
/dev/sdb is mounted; will not make a filesystem here!

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xcab10bee

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1        5590    44901643+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2            5591        8854    26218080   83  Linux
/dev/sda3            8855       19457    85168597+   5  Extended
/dev/sda5            8855       10421    12586896   83  Linux

Disk /dev/sdb: 1 MB, 1474560 bytes
1 heads, 3 sectors/track, 960 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 3 * 512 = 1536 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x6f20736b

This doesn't look like a partition table
Probably you selected the wrong device.

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   ?   259378637   639881847   570754815+  72  Unknown
Partition 1 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
     phys=(357, 116, 40) logical=(259378636, 0, 1)
Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings:
     phys=(357, 32, 45) logical=(639881846, 0, 1)
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb2   ?    56229841   701572588   968014120   65  Novell Netware 386
Partition 2 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
     phys=(288, 115, 43) logical=(56229840, 0, 3)
Partition 2 has different physical/logical endings:
     phys=(367, 114, 50) logical=(701572587, 0, 1)
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb3   ?   623293822  1268636553   968014096   79  Unknown
Partition 3 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
     phys=(366, 32, 33) logical=(623293821, 0, 3)
Partition 3 has different physical/logical endings:
     phys=(357, 32, 43) logical=(1268636552, 0, 1)
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb4   ?           1  1212408832  1818613248    d  Unknown
Partition 4 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
     phys=(372, 97, 50) logical=(0, 0, 1)
Partition 4 has different physical/logical endings:
     phys=(0, 10, 0) logical=(1212408831, 0, 3)
Partition 4 does not end on cylinder boundary.

Partition table entries are not in disk order
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$

[rcgreen]

I didn't think /dev/sdb was a floppy drive. Could explain
the problem more fully?

[Agent-X]

I have a bunch of floppies from now to maybe 1993. They're old!

I've been using a Windows OS in order to reformat them, which gets annoying. I read them via an external usb floppy drive. And I guess the disks get mounted from /dev/sdb to /media/disk.

Thing is, formatting /dev/sdb doesn't seem to work.
I don't know why.

[devils casper]

/dev/sdb is mounted; will not make a filesystem here!

Check the output of df command and make sure that Floppy should not be mounted because its not possible to format mounted devices. Execute umount command to unmount it.