From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Oct 23 11:46:37 2013 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [8.8.178.115]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id F19AC33B for ; Wed, 23 Oct 2013 11:46:37 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Received: from mx02.qsc.de (mx02.qsc.de [213.148.130.14]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id B3ACD27C2 for ; Wed, 23 Oct 2013 11:46:37 +0000 (UTC) Received: from r56.edvax.de (port-92-195-117-74.dynamic.qsc.de [92.195.117.74]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mx02.qsc.de (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 27D1727682; Wed, 23 Oct 2013 13:46:35 +0200 (CEST) Received: from r56.edvax.de (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by r56.edvax.de (8.14.5/8.14.5) with SMTP id r9NBkSKb002038; Wed, 23 Oct 2013 13:46:28 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2013 13:46:28 +0200 From: Polytropon To: Warren Block Subject: Re: click-click in floppy disk drive Message-Id: <20131023134628.d91267ab.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: References: <20131021135605.DSZ95987@ms5.mc.surewest.net> <20131022230000.9bfa7add.freebsd@edvax.de> Organization: EDVAX X-Mailer: Sylpheed 3.1.1 (GTK+ 2.24.5; i386-portbld-freebsd8.2) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: leeoliveshackelford@surewest.net, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list Reply-To: Polytropon List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2013 11:46:38 -0000 On Tue, 22 Oct 2013 19:56:37 -0600 (MDT), Warren Block wrote: > Some background things like HAL may poll removable media devices to > detect new media, and this might cause a floppy to click. Could depend > on the manufacturer of the drive. That would be my first guess, anyway. That's what I tought in the first place. It's very unlikely that the system's default periodic scripts could trigger a continuous activity of the drive (even though I can imagine that a pending umount or something comparable could have caused this). Systems like HAL that commonly belong to GUI desktop environments can, if they are set to polling the drive's state, cause such activity, but it depends on _how_ they do it and _how_ the drive acts. For example, I've tried with my external USB drive. As long as there is no floppy in it, it cannot be encouraged to show any activity with a typical null command. But if a floppy is in the drive (unmounted of course), the drive will light up and buzz. This only works as long as there's a floppy in the drive, so I assume the drive already contains some "logic" of reporting a _possible_ disk to the firmware. Of course, other manufacturers might handle this very differently, and maybe even rely on a proprietary driver to show the _desired_ way of operation (instead of annoying clicking for evey poll). At least, the classic Amiga floppy drive wasn't that annoying when determining if there's a floppy disk in the drive - much more advanced than what the PC usually did ("Press ENTER for next disk!"). ;-) > If that is the cause, it may be possible to tell whatever is doing the > polling to skip the floppy device. The OP should have a look a HAL configuration and maybe remove the floppy drive's device from the list for polling. There might be other mechanisms than HAL, maybe also tied to a desktop environment, that could cause that kind of polling. It could even be a user program - but as far as I know, no such thing is part of the FreeBSD OS... -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...