🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Aug6.093943.196@mble.philips.be> stern@mble.philips.be writes:
>Could anybody explain me how to detect if a floppy is already formatted

Try this:

	mov	ax,0401h	;ah=4 -> verify    al=1 -> 1 sector
	mov	cx,1		;track=0 / sector=1
	mov	dx,0		;head=0 / drive=0, mov dx,1 for b:
	int	13h
	jc	not_formatted
formatted:

This will verify that the boot sector of the disk has been properly
formatted.  To be even more certain, check the first three bytes of this
sector.  They should be a short jump followed by a nop or a near jump
for an MSDOS format.  Be sure to try any bios disk operation on a
floppy at least three times before accepting an error condition.

				--Phil