Cannot write to floppy image

Hello,

I am running VMWare Workstation 9.0.1 build 894247 on Ubuntu 12.10 Desktop 64 bit

I have an ext4 file system and I can create a floppy image no problem.

I can also boot from an existing floppy image and read files no problem.

... but I canoot format the floppy image ... I get device not ready within Windows 98.

I have set the image file to -rwxrwxrwx

all format attemps take a long time then time out and report an error such that the devices is not ready.