🚀 go-pugleaf

Our new color NeXTstation ha great problems writing to MS-DOS formatted 
floppies.  Even if this subject has been beaten to death already, it is
a very current, very real unsolved problem for us.  

Problems:
1) You can't initialize an unformatted disk to MS-DOS format unless you
  (deviously) first insert an MS-DOS disk, select it, then manually eject
  that disk and supplant it with your unformatted one.  I am uncomfortable 
  with this because it's like unmounting/mounting a filesystem without Mach's
  knowledge.  Can this cause any harm?
2) 1.44MB MS-DOS floppie (formatted on an MS-DOS machine) are often un-
  writeable.  When I try to copy to them, I get an "Invalid Argument" error
  in the process inspector! The disk write-protect is not the problem; so
  what the hell IS*?
3) 'Successfully' formatting MS-DOS diskettes, and writing files to them 
  often yields diskettes that appear EMPTY to MS-DOS machines.  I am writing
  filenames in the proper MS-DOS format (xxxxxxxx.xxx).  

It's hard to remain calm (and avoid ending every sentence with an indignant
string of exclamation marks) when confronted with this kind of random func- 
tionality; so I ask:
  
Is this a hardware or a software problem?  
Is there an upgrate/utility that can consistently deal with MS-DOS floppies?  
Are there utilities that can read/write Macintosh or Amiga diskettes?

			-Mucho obliged
			Arnim Sauerbier
			Institute of Human Genetics