Floppy problems

[pbowen at fastmail.fm]

Sirs:

I'm having a problem doing "newfs" to a floppy on a new installation. I tried 
changing to a new floppy and get the same thing.

# fdformat -f 1440 /dev/fd0
Format 1440K floppy `/dev/fd0'? (y/n): y
Processing VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV done.
# bsdlabel -B -w /dev/fd0 fd1440
# newfs /dev/fd0
newfs: wtfs: 512 bytes at sector 2879: Input/output error
# newfs_msdos /dev/fd0
/dev/fd0: 2840 sectors in 355 FAT12 clusters (4096 bytes/cluster)
bps=512 spc=8 res=1 nft=2 rde=512 sec=2880 mid=0xf0 spf=2 spt=18 hds=2 hid=0
newfs_msdos: /dev/fd0: Input/output error
#

If I take a linux formatted floppy, mount it, then "ls" on the mount point, I 
can get the dir listing. Or if I "less" a file on the floppy I can read the 
contents. Any attempt to use "vi" or to write to the floppy fails with 
another "Input/Output error".

# uname -a
FreeBSD  5.3-RELEASE FreeBSD 5.3-RELEASE #0: Fri Nov  5 04:19:18 UTC 2004     
root at harlow.cse.buffalo.edu:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC  i386
#

Can you help? TIA.