reading ancient floppy formats

[Allan Swanepoel]

On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 10:55 PM, D. Hugh Redelmeier <hugh at mimosa.com>wrote:

> | From: Allan Swanepoel <allanice001 at gmail.com>
>
> | On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 8:34 PM, Jonathan Ryshpan <jonrysh at pacbell.net
> >wrote:
> |
> | > On Sun, 2009-09-20 at 10:09 -0400, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
>
> | > > Why was the command dropped?  Would it no longer work?  Is there
> | > > another way provided to accomplish the same thing?
> | > >
> | > > I think SuSE dropped the command too.  Debian and Ubuntu have it in
> the
> | > > fdutils package.
> | >
> | > I would download the fdutils package from http://fdutils.linux.lu ,
> try
> | > to compile and install them, and (if that works) then see what happens.
>
> Jonathan:
>
> Sure, but there must have been a reason for it being dropped.  I also
> suspect that when RedHat supported it, they patched it (I haven't
> checked).
>
> | technically, if the physical device is in your bios, you should see a
> | /dev/floppy device .you should be able to mount this, or just dd it to a
> | file
> | dd if=/dev/floppy of=img1.img
>
> Allan:
>
> See fd(4).  If you use /dev/fd1, the driver tries to autoconfigure the
> interface.  But I doubt that it can do so for oddball things like quad
> density and 10 sectors/track.  fd(4) doesn't talk about quad density
> but setfdprm(8) does.
>
> I'm trying Fedora Core 3 on the box.  dding from /dev/fd1 gets a lot
> of errors.  Here are the first few (from dmesg):
>    end_request: I/O error, dev fd1, sector 18
>    Buffer I/O error on device fd1, logical block 2
>    end_request: I/O error, dev fd1, sector 24
>    Buffer I/O error on device fd1, logical block 3
>    end_request: I/O error, dev fd1, sector 32
>    Buffer I/O error on device fd1, logical block 4
>    end_request: I/O error, dev fd1, sector 40
>    Buffer I/O error on device fd1, logical block 5
>
> I don't quite know what those mean.  Is sector 18 in logical block 2?
> That would seem odd.  Note that these errors are in dmesg and so are
> from the kernel, not dd.
>
> I tried a more modest dd:
>        dd if=/dev/fd1 of=1 bs=512 count=1
> The dd printed the in and out count and yet the drive continued to
> make seeking noises (and perhaps recalibrating noises) afterwards for
> a couple of seconds.  Odd.  There were no error messages.
>
> The whole block is 0.  I don't know if that is expected (I don't
> remember how the machine that wrote it laid down a 7th edition file
> system on a floppy).  The machine was a Nabu 1600, not a PC clone (it
> predates PC clones).
>
>
firstly, it could be that the floppies are stuffed. These are among the
first magnetic disks I know of. Any electronic interference could make these
go haywire. How close are they to your cellphone?
secondly, there could be a blown circuit on the controller board. this is
capable of giving bad reads, as is a damaged cable.
and lastly, WTF are you doing with a machine that belongs in a museum next
to the the freaking ark???


--
> fedora-list mailing list
> fedora-list at redhat.com
> To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
> Guidelines:
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate/MailingListGuidelines
>



-- 
We live in an age when pizza gets to your home before the police.
 - Jeff Marder
------------------------------------------
Allan Swanepoel
allanice001 at gmail.com
allanice.001 at unix.net
dragonmaster at linaccess.com
+27 71 850 5554
Linux User #452990
Linux Machine #360914
-----------------------------------------------
IMPORTANT: This email is intended for the use of  the  individual
addressee(s)  named  above  and  may  contain information that is
confidential,  privileged  or  unsuitable  for  overly  sensitive persons
 with  low  self-esteem, no sense of humour or irrational religious beliefs.
If you are not  the  intended  recipient,  any dissemination,  distribution
 or copying  of  this  email is not authorised (either explicitly or
implicitly) and  constitutes  an irritating  social  faux  pas. Unless the
word absquatulation has been used in its correct context somewhere  other
 than  in  this warning, it does not have any legal or grammatical use and
may be ignored. No animals were  harmed  in  the  transmission  of  this
email,  although  the  yorkshire  terrier  next door is living on borrowed
time, let me tell you. Those of you with an overwhelming fear  of  the
unknown will be gratified to learn that there is no hidden message revealed
by reading  this  warning  backwards,  so just ignore that Alert Notice from
Microsoft: However, by pouring a complete circle of salt around yourself and
your  computer  you can  ensure  that  no harm befalls you and your pets.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listman.redhat.com/archives/fedora-list/attachments/20090921/d3fa7904/attachment-0001.htm>