Formatting Floppy Disk

Embird Embroidery Software Tutorial

Embird supports standard and non-standard floppy disk formats.

Standard floppy disks are disks with designs stored in standard MS-DOS format. These disks are recognized and can be accessed in Windows Explorer, common file manager or any other application supporting floppy disks. In Embird you can access standard floppy disk by choosing the disk drive (typically "A:") in "Drive:" box in Right Panel of Manager window.

Non-standard floppy disks are disks with designs stored in special format. These disks are not recognized and cannot be accessed in Windows Explorer or in common file manager - these applications report "Disk is not formatted" error when you attempt to read floppy disk contents. In Embird you can access non-standard floppy disks via Left Panel menu of Manager window. However, the non-standard floppy disk formats require low-level access to floppy disk controller and therefore the non-standard floppy disks are supported only on Non-USB floppy drive connected to motherboard floppy port.

Formatting Standard Floppy Disks (MS-DOS Format)

Format standard floppy disk using Windows formatting commands:

1 - Insert the floppy disk into the disk drive. Make sure, that the disk is not write-protected.

2 - Click "My Computer" icon located on the Desktop. A window containing all available drives will be shown on the screen.

3 - Right click the icon which represents the floppy disk drive (typically "A:"). This will display a popup menu.

4 - Choose "Format" command from the popup menu. A dialog box will appear on the screen, allowing you to choose the formatting options.

5 - Choose the right disk capacity and click "Start" button to start the formatting process.

Note 1: In case of "Tajima" disk, use 2DD (double-sided double-density) floppy disks and always specify "TAJIMA" label in the format dialog box. Floppy disk without this label might be not recognized by the embroidery machine.

Note 2: You can format also standard floppy disks in Embird by using the steps explained below for non-standard floppy disks - just choose "Standard Floppy Disk" option in step 3.

Formatting Non-Standard Floppy Disks (e.g. Barudan, ZSK)

Non-standard floppy disks cannot be formatted using Windows formatting commands. Use the following steps:

1 - Run Embird, it will start in "Manager" mode.

2 - Select "Left Panel > Format Floppy Disk" command from the main menu (Picture No. 1).

1. Select "Left Panel > Format Floppy Disk" menu

3 - Choose the floppy disk format in the dialog box which appears on the screen (Picture No.2). Click "OK" button to continue.

2. Choose floppy disk format

4 - Insert the floppy disk into the disk drive. Make sure, that the disk is not write-protected (Picture No.3). Click "OK" button to continue.

Note: Embird will either ask you for 2DD (double-sided double-density, 720 kB) or 2HD (double sided high-density, 1.44 MB) floppy disk, depending on the format you choose in step 3. Make sure, that you are inserting the right type of disk.

3. Insert floppy disk

5 - Note, that all files already stored on the floppy disk will be erased during the formatting process (Picture No. 4). If you agree, click "Yes" button to continue.

4. Confirm disk formatting

6 - The formatting process will start. Wait until the floppy disk is formatted to 100%.

7 - Once the formatting is finished, a dialog box will appear on the screen, showing the result of the operation. Click "OK" button (Picture No. 5).

5. Operation result

8 - Floppy disk is now formatted and ready for use - now you can write the designs to it. Find more details in Writing Designs to Floppy Disks tutorial.

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