Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2001 11:35:56 +0100 From: Julio Merino <juli@merino.net> To: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org Subject: Floppy disk section - Check it! Message-ID: <20011224113556.A1146@klamath.local>
next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
--Fba/0zbH8Xs+Fj9o
Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="wac7ysb48OaltWcw"
Content-Disposition: inline
--wac7ysb48OaltWcw
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Hi there
At last I've converted and integrated my "Floppy disk" section inside the
handbook with sgml.
I've attached the section here, in html format. Sorry, I haven't found any
ftp service now to put it...
Well, I wait all your comments and suggestions about it before I send the
text to be included in the handbook.
Thanks!
--=20
La ignorancia es la felicidad.
Julio Merino (Slink) <juli@merino.net>
--wac7ysb48OaltWcw
Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="floppies.html"
<HTML
><HEAD
><TITLE
>Floppy disks</TITLE
><META
NAME="GENERATOR"
CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.73
"><LINK
REL="HOME"
TITLE="FreeBSD Handbook"
HREF="index.html"><LINK
REL="UP"
TITLE="Storage"
HREF="disks.html"><LINK
REL="PREVIOUS"
TITLE="Backups to Floppies"
HREF="backups-floppybackups.html"><LINK
REL="NEXT"
TITLE="Appendices"
HREF="p1541.html"><LINK
REL="STYLESHEET"
TYPE="text/css"
HREF="docbook.css"></HEAD
><BODY
CLASS="SECT1"
BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF"
TEXT="#000000"
LINK="#0000FF"
VLINK="#840084"
ALINK="#0000FF"
><DIV
CLASS="NAVHEADER"
><TABLE
SUMMARY="Header navigation table"
WIDTH="100%"
BORDER="0"
CELLPADDING="0"
CELLSPACING="0"
><TR
><TH
COLSPAN="3"
ALIGN="center"
>FreeBSD Handbook</TH
></TR
><TR
><TD
WIDTH="10%"
ALIGN="left"
VALIGN="bottom"
><A
HREF="backups-floppybackups.html"
ACCESSKEY="P"
>Prev</A
></TD
><TD
WIDTH="80%"
ALIGN="center"
VALIGN="bottom"
>Chapter 1 Storage</TD
><TD
WIDTH="10%"
ALIGN="right"
VALIGN="bottom"
><A
HREF="p1541.html"
ACCESSKEY="N"
>Next</A
></TD
></TR
></TABLE
><HR
ALIGN="LEFT"
WIDTH="100%"></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="SECT1"
><H1
CLASS="SECT1"
><A
NAME="FLOPPIES"
>1.11 Floppy disks</A
></H1
><I
CLASS="AUTHORGROUP"
><SPAN
CLASS="CONTRIB"
>Contributed by </SPAN
>Julio Merino. </I
><P
>Floppy disks are, nowadays, an old-fashioned medium to
store/share data. Although, there are still some times when you
need to use them, because you do not have any other removable
storage media or you need to use what you have saved in them on
any other computer.</P
><P
>This section will explain how to use floppy disks in
FreeBSD, that is, formating and copying/restoring data from
them. But... I really have written this to help you about how to
create forced-size floppies.</P
><DIV
CLASS="SECT2"
><H2
CLASS="SECT2"
><A
NAME="AEN1485"
>1.11.1 The device</A
></H2
><P
>Floppy disks are accessed throught entries in
<TT
CLASS="FILENAME"
>/dev</TT
> (like any other device). To access the
raw floppy disk you can use <TT
CLASS="FILENAME"
>/dev/rfdX</TT
>,
where X stands for the drive number, usually 0. When the disk is
formatted you can use <TT
CLASS="FILENAME"
>/dev/fdX</TT
>, or
whichever of the other devices named
<TT
CLASS="FILENAME"
>/dev/fdXY</TT
>, where Y stands for a
letter. These are all the same.</P
><P
>Other important devices are
<TT
CLASS="FILENAME"
>/dev/fdX.size</TT
>, where size is a floppy disk
size in kilobytes. These entries are used at low-level format
time to determine the disk size.</P
></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="SECT2"
><H2
CLASS="SECT2"
><A
NAME="AEN1494"
>1.11.2 Formatting</A
></H2
><P
>A floppy disk needs to be low-level formated before it can
be used. This is usually done by the vendor but you may want to
do it to check media integrity or to force the disk capacity to
be bigger.</P
><P
>To format the floppy at a low-level fashion you need to
use <B
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>fdformat</B
>. This utility expects
the device name as an argument. We will use those
<TT
CLASS="FILENAME"
>/dev/fdX.size</TT
> devices, which will allow us
to format the floppy to its real size, or force them. So you
insert a new 3.5inch floppy disk in your drive and issue:</P
><PRE
CLASS="SCREEN"
> <TT
CLASS="PROMPT"
>#</TT
> <TT
CLASS="USERINPUT"
><B
>/usr/sbin/fdformat /dev/rfd0.1440</B
></TT
></PRE
><P
>This will take a while... You should notice any disk error
here (this can help you determining which disks are good or
bad).</P
><P
>To force the floppy disk size, we will use other entries
in <TT
CLASS="FILENAME"
>/dev</TT
>. Get the same floppy and issue:
<PRE
CLASS="SCREEN"
> <TT
CLASS="PROMPT"
>#</TT
> <TT
CLASS="USERINPUT"
><B
>/usr/sbin/fdformat /dev/rfd0.1720</B
></TT
></PRE
>
</P
><P
>It will take some more time than before (forced disks are
slower). When it finishes, you will have a 1720kb floppy disk,
but for the moment you will not notice any difference. You may
use other disk sizes that you can find in /dev, but the most
stable/compatible is the 1720kb for 3.5inch disks.</P
></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="SECT2"
><H2
CLASS="SECT2"
><A
NAME="AEN1510"
>1.11.3 The disklabel</A
></H2
><P
>After low-level formatting the disk, you will need to
place a disklabel on it. This disklabel will be destroyed
later, but it is needed by the system to determine the size of
the disk and its geometry later.</P
><P
>The new disklabel will take over the whole disk, and will
contain all the proper information about the geometry of the
normal or forced floppy. Take a look to
<TT
CLASS="FILENAME"
>/etc/disktab</TT
> now; you will see geometry
values of all kinds of floppy disks.
</P
><P
>You can run now <B
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>disklabel</B
>
like:</P
><PRE
CLASS="SCREEN"
> <TT
CLASS="PROMPT"
>#</TT
> <TT
CLASS="USERINPUT"
><B
>/sbin/disklabel -B -r -w /dev/rfd0 fd(size)</B
></TT
></PRE
><P
>Replace fd(size) with fd1440, fd1720 or whichever size you
want. The last field instructs disklabel which entry to take
from <TT
CLASS="FILENAME"
>/etc/disktab</TT
> to use.</P
></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="SECT2"
><H2
CLASS="SECT2"
><A
NAME="AEN1522"
>1.11.4 The filesystem</A
></H2
><P
>Now your floppy is ready to be high-level formated. This
will place a new filesystem on it, which will let FreeBSD read
and write to the disk. After creating the new filesystem, the
disklabel is destroyed, so if you want to reformat the disk, you
will have to recreate the disklabel another time.</P
><P
>You can choose now which filesystem to use on your floppy.
You can use UFS or FAT, though UFS is not a good idea for
floppies. Choose FAT which is nice for floppies.</P
><P
>To put a new filesystem on the floppy do this:</P
><PRE
CLASS="SCREEN"
> <TT
CLASS="PROMPT"
>#</TT
> <TT
CLASS="USERINPUT"
><B
>/sbin/newfs_msdos /dev/fd0</B
></TT
></PRE
><P
>As we created a disklabel before, <B
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>newfs</B
>
will be able to fetch disk data and construct the new
filesystem. And now, your disk is ready for use...</P
></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="SECT2"
><H2
CLASS="SECT2"
><A
NAME="AEN1532"
>1.11.5 Using the floppy</A
></H2
><P
>You have two choices to use the floppy. You can either
mount the disk with <B
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>mount_msdos</B
>, or you can
use
<B
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>mtools</B
>.
<B
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>Mtools</B
> are great, but you will need
to install them from the ports system.</P
><P
>Try it; issue a <B
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>mdir</B
>. If you forced the
disk, you will notice its extra size!</P
><P
>A last note about forced disks: they are compatible with
practically all other operating systems without any external
utility to read/write them. Microsoft systems will recognize
them without problems. But note that there may be times when the
floppy drive itself is not able to read them (this may happen
with very old drives).</P
></DIV
></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="NAVFOOTER"
><HR
ALIGN="LEFT"
WIDTH="100%"><TABLE
SUMMARY="Footer navigation table"
WIDTH="100%"
BORDER="0"
CELLPADDING="0"
CELLSPACING="0"
><TR
><TD
WIDTH="33%"
ALIGN="left"
VALIGN="top"
><A
HREF="backups-floppybackups.html"
ACCESSKEY="P"
>Prev</A
></TD
><TD
WIDTH="34%"
ALIGN="center"
VALIGN="top"
><A
HREF="index.html"
ACCESSKEY="H"
>Home</A
></TD
><TD
WIDTH="33%"
ALIGN="right"
VALIGN="top"
><A
HREF="p1541.html"
ACCESSKEY="N"
>Next</A
></TD
></TR
><TR
><TD
WIDTH="33%"
ALIGN="left"
VALIGN="top"
>Backups to Floppies</TD
><TD
WIDTH="34%"
ALIGN="center"
VALIGN="top"
><A
HREF="disks.html"
ACCESSKEY="U"
>Up</A
></TD
><TD
WIDTH="33%"
ALIGN="right"
VALIGN="top"
>Appendices</TD
></TR
></TABLE
></DIV
><p
align="center"
><small
>This, and other documents, can be downloaded from <A
HREF="ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/doc/"
>ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/doc/</A
>.</small
></p
><p
align="center"
><small
>For questions about FreeBSD, read the <A
HREF="http://www.FreeBSD.org/docs.html"
>documentation</A
> before contacting <<A
HREF="mailto:questions@FreeBSD.org"
>questions@FreeBSD.org</A
>>.<br>For questions about this documentation, e-mail <<A
HREF="mailto:doc@FreeBSD.org"
>doc@FreeBSD.org</A
>>.</small
></p
></BODY
></HTML
>
--wac7ysb48OaltWcw--
--Fba/0zbH8Xs+Fj9o
Content-Type: application/pgp-signature
Content-Disposition: inline
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (FreeBSD)
Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org
iD8DBQE8JwUMzz00ZOPKycwRAvG9AJ92hrfCx8OyL0EsEwzKs6FIdCtdDwCfWjjT
8zTLnNt2WN3E62Os0dvFRH8=
=jtLa
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
--Fba/0zbH8Xs+Fj9o--
To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20011224113556.A1146>