I feel bad on posting this because this should be something easy to figure out but it has me whipped I can mount my floopy read and write to it but when it comes to formatting all I can format it is ext2 filesystem but I want to format it to vfat here is the command I have been trying to use

/sbin/mkfs -t vfat /dev/sda
mkfs.vfat 2.8 (28 Feb 2001)
mkfs.vfat: Will not try to make filesystem on '/dev/sda'

but when I try to make ext2 no problem heres the output
/sbin/mke2fs /dev/sda
mke2fs 1.32 (09-Nov-2002)
/dev/sda is entire device, not just one partition!
Proceed anyway? (y,n) y
Filesystem label=
OS type: Linux
Block size=1024 (log=0)
Fragment size=1024 (log=0)
184 inodes, 1440 blocks
72 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=1
1 block group
8192 blocks per group, 8192 fragments per group
184 inodes per group

Writing inode tables: done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

This filesystem will be automatically checked every 31 mounts or
180 days, whichever comes first. Use tune2fs -c or -i to override.
[root@localhost downloads]#

but I want vfat tried also the fdformat command
fdformat /dev/sda
Could not determine current format type: Invalid argument
I will appreciate any help getting a headache from looking on the web for a simple answer

Try using /sbin/mkfs -t vfat /dev/sda1 instead to format the first partition on the device.

Hope this helps.

Floppies are not formated as vfat but msdos.
mkfs -t msdos /dev/sda;