# format a:/s



## feel4real (Apr 1, 2004)

Hi 
i have 2 floppy boot disks and want to make a copy of them to keep safe. 
can you tell me how i can copy them to a new floppy please, i have tryed to use the dose comand but it say invalide parameter. and if i right click the a: drive > foramt it dosent give me the option of make bootable.

any one knopw what i am doing wrong?
thanks 
joe

win 2000


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## brushmaster1 (Jun 15, 2002)

Try typing this *exactly
FORMATA: /S*

Note the space between A: and the /


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## feel4real (Apr 1, 2004)

yes tryed that and still says invalid


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## Davec (Jan 27, 2001)

When you right click does it say "Make an MS-DOS Start-up Disk?" That is apparently the XP version of "make bootable" or "copy system files".


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## Davec (Jan 27, 2001)

brushmaster1 said:


> Try typing this *exactly
> FORMATA: /S*
> 
> Note the space between A: and the /


And note also there should be a space between "format" and "a:".


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## Squashman (Apr 4, 2003)

You can always download a bootdisk from Bootdisk.com. There are a couple of other websites that do this as well.


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## Lurker1 (Jan 30, 2001)

If you already have good floppys and are using DOS then you want to use the DISKCOPY command which copys the entire disk contents and boot record. Try DISKCOPY A: A:


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## awalker0878 (Dec 17, 2005)

off topic but in windows xp format a: /u (unconditional) works but in the documention in help or msdn library it makes no mention of this as a valid switch does anyone know if format.com ignores the switch or it actually does an unconditional format?


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