CP/M provides no standardized way of reading/writing the system tracks, so the exact method used varies considerably from implementation to implementation. It might be done by sysgen, it might be done by format (or whatever the low- level init program is called - this is also not standardized), or it might be done by a separate utility. If these are soft-sector disks, you might be able to read/write them on a PC with an 8" drive connected. Assuming that works: - Use ImageDisk to read a disk image and write it back out (essentually copy the disk) - then delete all the files from it, and you will have an usable "blank". Read that back in with ImageDisk, and you will have an image that you can use to create "blank" disks at will. - If you want a truly blank "fresh" disk, you can try: - Create a file as big as a disk containing E5's - Use BIN2IMD to convert this to a disk image which matches your drives geometery. - Use IMDU to extract the system tracks from a bootable disk image. - Use IMDU to merge the E5's image to the system tracks image - this should give you an image of a "freshly formatted" disk with system tracks - this is assuming your system does not require any other special high-level format on the disk. Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html