What is a formatted floppy?

Answer 1

A floppy disk where everything on it has been removed / deleted, to clean it up for new stuff.

In order to format a floppy, you need to write blank tracks onto it, each containing the necessary sectors, sector headers, and inter-sector and intra-sector gaps. This is done using a special command of the floppy controller which writes a full track at a time.

You then need to write data to the floppy to provide the logical file system. In the FAT 12 file system, that consists of the boot record, the file allocation table, and the root directory.

If you intend to boot from the floppy, then you need to write the rest of the boot record, and the required operating system files, usually IBMBIO.SYS, IBMDOS.SYS, and COMMAND.COM.

If the floppy has been previously formatted, it is possible to skip the physical format part where you write the tracks - just rewrite the file allocation table and the root directory, and the system files if needed, and you will delete all of the files and directories on the floppy.

Often, however, it is better to do the complete format, particularly if you are using the floppy in a different drive.