From owner-freebsd-questions Sun Dec 14 19:36:41 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id TAA14084 for questions-outgoing; Sun, 14 Dec 1997 19:36:41 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions) Received: from stcgate.statcan.ca (stcgate.statcan.ca [142.206.192.1]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id TAA14078 for ; Sun, 14 Dec 1997 19:36:36 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jeays@statcan.ca) Received: (from root@localhost) by stcgate.statcan.ca (8.6.11/8.6.9) id WAA10956; Sun, 14 Dec 1997 22:39:32 -0500 Received: from stcinet.statcan.ca(142.206.128.146) by stcgate via smap (V1.3) id sma010947; Mon Dec 15 03:38:33 1997 Received: from statcan.ca by statcan.ca (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id WAA21100; Sun, 14 Dec 1997 22:37:21 -0500 Date: Sun, 14 Dec 1997 22:34:00 -0500 (EST) From: Mike Jeays X-Sender: jeays@austral To: Greg Lehey cc: grobin@accessv.com, questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Accessing Floppy Drive In-Reply-To: <19971215091243.56481@lemis.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Mon, 15 Dec 1997, Greg Lehey wrote: > On Sun, Dec 14, 1997 at 03:50:07PM -0500, Geoffrey Robinson wrote: > > This is a rather basic question but I'm new to UNIX so you'll have > > to excuse me. I can't seem to figure out how to mount, or otherwise > > access a UNIX formatted floppy. > > Why do you want to do this? > > > When I needed to transfer a file from FreeBSD to Windows I found out > > how to mount an MS-DOS formatted floppy but when I try using mount > > to mount a UNIX formatted floppy (formatted with fdformat) in fd0 I > > get an error message about an incorrect super block. What do I do? > > You already have the simple answer from somebody else. But he didn't > tell you that this will waste nearly half the capacity of the floppy. > Normally, it's not a good idea to put file systems on floppy. You > can't use them to exchange data with other (non-BSD) UNIX systems, > either, since the format differs from one UNIX system to another. If > you want to use the floppy for backup or transfer purposes, tar is > better, and it doesn't require a file system. To copy files to the > floppy, enter: > > # tar cvf /dev/rfd0 > > To extract them into the current directory or in a subdirectory of the > current directory, enter: > > # tar xvf /dev/rfc0 > > If you omit the when extracting, it will extract > everything for you. > > Greg > I use the following script, part of which I got from someone else; I can't remeber who : #!/bin/sh # Floppy formats: # # To make a filesystem on a floppy: # fdformat [-f ] fd[.] # disklabel -B -r -w fd[.] fd # newfs fd[.] # fdformat -q fd0.1440 disklabel -B -r -w fd0.1440 fd1440 newfs -c 1 fd0.1440 I don't find that half of the space is wasted, and have had many diskettes work reliably in this mode. It beats using DOS-format disks, amd losing the long filenames with case sensitivity.