formatting floppies

[RPG_Gamer]

I have Windows XP Proffesional on one hardrive and GNU/Debian on the other as well as Knoppix on CD. I am new to Linux and I guess Debian wasnt a good choice to go with as I can't seem to make it do anything other then log on. Want I want to do is to format a floppy disk to a RAW state and not a filesystem like FAT. Windows does not let me and I have a hard time finding a 3rd party program that does not require pure DOS. Can someone tell me how to Format the floppy to a RAW state with either Windows or Linux but if its with Linux could you please make the instructions easy to understand? Thanks

[puntmuts]

login as root or become root using su -
Read the man page, especially the formats section and choose the one you want. You will only have to use the /dev/fd0 entries. I will give an example for a 1440 formatted drive:

fdformat /dev/fd0H1440

That should low level format your floppy without a filesystem. If a specific mode does not work, try another one. Remember that only the ones starting with /dev/fd0 will work on the first floppy drive. /dev/fd1 is the second floppy drive, but who has two floppy drives nowadays

[jaboua]

If you meant earsing the floppy completely, I did it with dd not long ago:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/fd0