JSI Tip 1861. 'STOP: The disk media is not recognized, it may not be formatted'.
Jerold Schulman
December 1, 1999
1 Min Read
You receive the subject message when you attemp to access a floppy disk.
Windows NT requires a media descriptor byte. Some preformatted diskettes don't have a media descriptor byte.
The workaround is to format the diskette in Windows NT.
Some programs, such as NORTON DISKEDIT can change the media descriptor byte, which is located at byte 21 (0x15) of sector 0, counting from 0. Here is a table of media descriptor bytes:
Byte Capacity Media Size and Type ------------------------------------------------- F0 2.88 MB 3.5-inch, 2-sided, 36-sector F0 1.44 MB 3.5-inch, 2-sided, 18-sector F9 720K 3.5-inch, 2-sided, 9-sector F9 1.2 MB 5.25-inch, 2-sided, 15-sector FD 360K 5.25-inch, 2-sided, 9-sector FF 320K 5.25-inch, 2-sided, 8-sector FC 180K 5.25-inch, 1-sided, 9-sector FE 160K 5.25-inch, 1-sided, 8-sector FE 250K 8-inch, 1-sided, single-density FD 500K 8-inch, 2-sided, single-density FE 1.2 MB 8-inch, 2-sided, double-density F8 ----- Fixed disk
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