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I have been using DOS floppies for a while now without any problems. The other day I tried to use a DOS floppy formatted on XP and VA froze, the only way out was to reboot. Acorn formatted disks work, Linux formatted DOS disks work, but not Windows XP. I think all my other DOS formatted disks were formatted under Windows 98 and they still work.
Any one else experiencing this problem?

I've had no reports of this problem that I can remember. Once you have formatted the floppy under WindowsXP can Windows read the disc? Are you reading the DOS discs under VA via HostFS or ADFS?

I don't know what went wrong but today windows 98, XP, zeta and Suse formatted DOS discs can be read. Dodgy connectors? I only got one error and that was "Error when readig ADFS::Untitled.$ Ambiguous disc name" I assumed that was because I didn't label the disc.
I just clicked on the floppy icon to read the discs.
I don't think there is a problem, apart from me!!
Cheers, Alan

The ambiguous disc name error happens under RISC OS when the contents of a floppy disc are changed by something other than RISC OS.
For example:
Insert floppy under RISC OS
Write some files to it.
Take the disc out - put it in another machine.
Write some more files to it.
Put it back in the RISC OS machine.
Try and read it - results in an error.
The solution is to always dismount a floppy before removing it from the drive. This can be done by clicking MENU over the floppy drive icon and clicking on DisMount.

I'm pretty sure I know what went wrong. If Windows Explorer is open and pointing to the floppy when VA is launched, VA becomes unstable when one tries to access the floppy from within VA!! A trap for young players... and some of us older ones.
Cheers, Alan